Great Barrington — In a warm, and at moments, turbulent Town Hall meeting room last Monday (July 13), the apparently controversial issue of preventing dangerous speeding on Taconic Avenue finally gave way to a reasonable compromise.
The Selectboard unanimously agreed that the town should go forward with plans to repave Taconic Avenue/Alford Road as part of this year’s budgeted roadwork, but will bid the project out in two parts, leaving the Taconic Avenue section — which residents there are worried about — for next spring. Department of Public Works Director Joe Sokul said spring was when it would likely get done under the original plan, anyway.
That will give the town time to come up with solutions — which it will address as a townwide issue — for what residents and even police radar data show is chronic and habitual speeding on the road.
“It will give us ample time to look at some conceptual drawings and put some numbers on it before we go and pave it,” Sokul said. “But let us go and get the other two sections of road done.”
During winter, bad spots in the road can also be patched, he added.
Residents of Taconic Avenue had previously asked the town to consider delaying paving the Taconic Avenue section of road until a plan to calm speeding could be worked into the paving process. That way, any work to the road wouldn’t have to be done twice.
But the idea of a delay made Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin worry about potentially risking state money allocated for roadwork (Chapter 90 funds) if the approved work was not completed as planned. Another concern was neighborhood favoritism — or the appearance of it. Selectboard member Dan Bailly said that there were other roads in town with similar speeding issues.
But residents who live on or in the vicinity of Taconic Avenue say it’s only a matter of time before tragedy will strike, given what they experience with the nearly 2,000 cars that travel the road every day (90 cars per hour). Radar data proves it: 92 percent of cars traveling on Taconic Avenue speed in the 25 m.p.h. zone.
Both the town and the residents who formed the Great Barrington Safe Streets Association have come up with ideas. Tabakin and Sokul have met with members of Safe Streets, and Safe Streets Monday night presented the board with renderings that show road design changes for slowing traffic by adding features such as curb plantings, chicane units and a mini turning circle at the Barrington Place intersection, among other ideas.
Taconic Avenue resident David Logan says that the renderings “are meant as a discussion starter,” and that as taxpayers, the group is leaning “toward the least intrusive and the least expensive” options.
“We don’t want to delay repaving,” Logan added. “We want to get this done before the Chapter 90 money is spent.”
Selectboard Chair Sean Stanton said that the board’s analysis of the renderings would require “professional help” from an engineer.
And Town Manager Tabakin explained that the town will have to hire a designer and engineers to implement changes, and that Chapter 90 money intended for paving can’t be moved to a safety project. Road design changes, she said, will cost additional money “on top of paving.”
And whatever is decided that goes above and beyond the current budget, will have to be approved at town meeting, Tabakin noted.
At the start of the meeting, Tabakin gave a Power Point overview of this year’s planned roadwork, and included a map of ideas for calming traffic that could be done within the budget, as part of the planned paving project. These included crosswalks, stop signs, intersection changes, enforcement, and dynamic speed signs that show driving speeds. It also includes an “edge lining” on pavement striping, to make the road appear narrower.
Longtime Cypress Street resident Steve Donaldson, who has been vocal about chronic speeding on Taconic Avenue, questioned some of the town’s proposed ideas, particularly the dynamic speed signs that were placed outside the problem zone. “It’s cutting out the worst section…where people speed egregiously.”
Donaldson said that traffic calming measures need to be applied in the most dangerous sections of road, “where the slope is steepest is the most at risk.”
He suggested speed radar control signs as a way to “make people think, take notice,” and that it could be followed up “with presence and action.”
David Logan simply wants to wait to do the roadwork “until we know what the options are and what they cost…”
Two residents, however, showed up to plead with the town against delaying the paving project, citing poor conditions on Alford Road, but before the board’s vote to continue the project carried.
“You can’t expect that road to stand up for another winter,” said Gene Selby, who lives on Alford Road. “You’re dealing not only with the safety of the children, but my safety…and anyone else that has to use that road…and if something happens up there, who’s responsible? If I’m swerving to miss a hole in the road, and I go off the road and hit a child that’s in the yard, whose fault is that?”
“It would be your fault,” said Berkshire Heights resident Martin Albert, who, after Selby appeared stunned by his answer, explained that radar show 92 percent of cars speeding on the road.
Albert’s reaction may have resulted from years of living near the Berkshire Heights/Taconic intersection, which opens up near a blind curve before a straight, downhill stretch in a densely populated zone. Neighbors report that the intersection has seen at least one accident, and many near misses.
The ensuing conversation between Selby and Albert prompted Stanton to make rare use of his gavel. “We’re not doing that,” he told them.
It appears that any speed calming measures that might work would be embraced by desperate residents of the Taconic Avenue area. In that vein, board member Ed Abrahams later told The Edge that out of curiosity, he called the Department of Transportation (DOT) to ask whether the town could add several stop signs onto Taconic Avenue. “They said that if it’s a town road, we can ignore DOT guidelines, but there are some liability issues.”
What was “more interesting,” Abrahams said, was the DOT official’s answer to the question of what to do when 92 percent of cars speed on a particular road.
“It sounds like the speed limit is too low,” said the official. “He said that 92 percent of drivers are not daredevils. If people are driving that fast, change the speed limit.”
When asked what to do about a long, straight road with lots of children living along it, the DOT official responded:“Teach the children not to go into the road.”
“But what the residents are saying,” Abrahams said, “is if people are driving too fast, change the shape of the road. Moving cars quickly is not the goal.”
