Good day,
We have become the new cut through streets to Cambridge. Because Cambridge made a mess of their part of Belmont Street it has caused drivers to cut through our five East End streets: Prentiss, Keenan, Brimmer, Francis and St. Mary’s.
Many times these people come down our streets at a high rate of speed. Speaking to some of our neighbors we think that speed bumps should be put in. I tried to contact the Town or City manager about this issue with no reply. It is a huge safety problem.
I hope this can be taken care of before someone gets hurt.
Thank you for your time
Bob Warner
Watertown Resident
Honest question…Is the claim here that the bus lanes and associated changes are causing people to go south down these streets to then proceed east to Cambridge on Mt. Auburn?
Yes.
There has also been a lot of construction at the end of Belmont as you approach the merge. That’s a temporary problem, is it is the cause. In which case, it would be drastic step to add speed bumps and by the time they’re installed that construction would be over.
My big problem is the speeding down the street. It would at least slow down most people who are in a hurry. Also the way Belmont St. is set up now we will continue to have cut throughs. Maybe the work that is going to be done on Mt.Auburn St. will be just as bad. Who knows.
Welcome to our world over here on Lovell (Road) Speedway. The never ending pipe installation on Common Street has made Lovell the preferred route for all traffic in and around th construction. There have already been two pretty significant accidents in the EIGHT months of this cluster… and apparently the end is no where in sight.
City Planning in action.
I can corroborate Bob Warner’s message. On weekday mornings I’m frequently in one of those long lines of cars that stack up down Belmont and Mount Auburn Streets, waiting to merge into one traffic lane heading toward Boston and Cambridge, and I often see drivers peel off onto these neighborhood streets.
Will cut-through traffic decrease when the construction ends? Seems doubtful. The reduction to one lane of travel on major roads will continue to drive a percentage of rush-hour traffic into our neighborhoods.
I bless former DPW Superintendent Gerry Mee for the two speed bumps installed years ago on Maplewood. They have unquestionably kept my neighborhood safer. For public safety, our city should require speed bumps on all vulnerable neighborhood streets going forward, starting with these five East End streets where resident safety is being compromised by speeding cut-through traffic right now.
Rather than more modifications, why don’t we look upstream at what is being done and was done that is causing the situation. Creating more gridlock and making it harder for people to get where they need to go is where this sequence of changes has taken us and continues to go rather than not doing things like restricting streets to one lane and adding all sorts of weird jutting out curbs, etc. that have the unintended (but frequently foreseeable) consequence of forcing people to look for alternatives. Maybe we started with the best option and shouldn’t have messed with it.
I suspect residents are going to be seeing more of this once the Mt Auburn St. project is completed and the Watertown Sq. redesign is (IF) approved under the current plan and drivers seek shortcuts/alternate routes through residential neighborhoods