Newton DPW CommissionerDavid Turocy sent this email to aldermen…
Honorable Board of Aldermen,
As you are aware, this Summer we have modified the intersection of Parker and Cypress Streets at Centre Street in Newton Centre, giving priority to vehicles on Centre Street by adding a stop sign on Cypress Street. We have also narrowed this intersection to reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians. This work was undertaken in an attempt to address long-standing vehicular and pedestrian concerns at this intersection, and was funded through the Mass Works program associated with the Chestnut Hill Square development project. This project was proposed by Public Works, and approved by both the Traffic Council and Board of Aldermen, through the Public Facilities Committee.
Although we have not yet completed all the construction work associated with this project, it is apparent that this new configuration has created significant traffic congestion on Cypress Street. Many of the initial delays were due to the construction process itself, as well as driver confusion and hesitancy in heeding the changes. While the delays have been reduced due to increased driver familiarity (and, of course, less summer traffic), I believe the intersection will continue to operate in a failing manner, particularly when students return to Bowen, Day and Oak Hill schools in the fall and more typical traffic volumes resume. Furthermore, the Real Property Reuse Committee recently began review of the former Health Department building which, along with possible changes to the Cypress Street parking lot, could effect traffic patterns in this vicinity and should be evaluated further. For these reasons, DPW will be removing the recently installed curbing and restoring the intersection back to its original configuration. I intend to begin these changes within the next week. Before the current Board Order authorizing the current work is fully implemented, I believe it is in the best interest of the city to restore the original configuration immediately. We will then work with the Board, and Traffic Council, to develop a recommended plan going forward.
We will continue with our other scheduled work in Newton Centre, including the revised pedestrian signals with concurrent crossing with traffic, as well as pedestrian bump-outs at Centre and Pleasant/Pelham Streets and the Centre Green, to be followed by re-surfacing on Centre, Beacon and Lyman Streets later this summer. I would like to stress to the Board that public safety is a priority for the DPW and we will continue to examine this site to seek alternate methods to address the concerns we have there and throughout Newton Centre.
Thank you for your input and understanding during this process. If you have any further questions regarding this work, please feel free to contact me.
David Turocy
DPW Commissioner
Thanks for posting this.
One particular perspective from which I welcome this: I go through Newton Centre frequently on my bike, and found the narrower Cypress St. to be particularly dangerous, with no room to maneuver my bike on the side of the road. I mind the Stop sign less, but I wonder if it’s really needed after all. That said, I understand the need for pedestrian safety at that spot.
Everyone makes mistakes. Kudos to Commissioner Turocy for recognizing that this reconfiguration added to the congestion rather than relieving it, and for moving quickly to reverse it.
This is great news. A colossal waste of money, but great news.
Thank you. I am so happy to hear that someone realized this new design does not work and will restore the older design which at least worked better.
It should’ve never been done in the first place. But glad to hear that city employees owed up to the mistake, and will now go about fixing it. It’s the right thing to do. Just a shame that we spent money to break it, and we’re now spending more to fix what we broke.
This is great news. One less issue for the campaign.
Dulles, we shouldn’t disparage the administration from experimenting with soluttions, not everytime they make a fix or an adjustment will it work the first time around. I give them credit for being open minded by seeing that the intersection didn’t work for thousands of people and maybe they’ll try something else.
I agree that credit is due for the city to recognize an approach, that however well intended, wasn’t likely to work. It does seem they listened to the complaints of citizens and came to the same conclusion it wasn’t going to work.
I could be wrong in my understanding of this, but I thought someone other than Newton was paying for this rework of that intersection.
For some reason, this makes me think of Brookline’s failed attempt to upgrade its parking meters, where there was such a hue and cry that they replaced the new meters.
It takes real character and professionalism to admit a mistake. DPW Commissioner, David Turocy, deserves a lot of credit for doing exactly that. I’d like to see Newton get rid of the Traffic Council, and hold elected officials accountable for these types of mistakes.
Hi @Tom Sheff, The proposed Daniel St./Jackson St. intersection changes was an example how to test a change up front. It used sandbags, cones and barrels for months before implementing changes. Newton Centre could’ve tested the proposed bumpout with some lane paint and concrete barriers, and discovered on the cheap that it didn’t work.
@Dan Fahey, I do believe the State supplied the funds for the redevelopment, but whether it not it came directly from our property tax bills, it’s still taxpayer money being spent. Regardless of whose money it was, I feel the city could’ve done better.
Kudos to Mr Turocy and all for admitting the mistake and setting things right — but I’m not going to go any higher in praising those responsible for fixing something they broke.
Mr Turocy has followed through on the statement he made as my guest on the Newton Newsmakers program. He was very forthcoming in appearing on the program and he deserves credit for recognizing that a change back was the right move.
It’s unclear on how this got so off track, but the place to begin looking would be to ask the members of the Public Facilities Committee. Another example of the need for community input before the fact rather than after. Two of our elected representatives for Newton Center told me point blank they thought the change was a bad idea to start with, however neither of them serve on the PF Committee.
Wicked Local has just posted a story.
Dulles, agreed. If there’s a complaint it was that it could have been done cheaper. Regardless, I am glad they changed it back.
I’m also happy that the DPW will be reversing the changes to the Cypress St interchange. Mr Turocy and his counterpart Bill Paille in the traffic dept are both incredibly solid individuals and have also shown themselves to be very open to review new information when it becomes available.
I do think however, that we need to keep in mind what we learned here as we keep our eye on the changes that are coming due to the Rt 128 add-a-lane project. MassDOT and the City have been excellent about providing new information on the changes and on the full design of the interchanges. However, the experience we just had here at Cypress St shows that even the best modeling can miss sometimes.
MassDOT has promised that they will address local difficulties due to the add-a-lane project through mitigation. This is good. I do think we need to keep having the conversation about the areas around both Kendrick St and Rt 9 to have in mind what will work best for the City if the traffic modeling turns out to have been in error or incomplete. These changes won’t be able to be undone the way Cypress will, so we will need to do something else.
What’s not clear in what I have read- are they leaving the stop sign or taking that out as well?
I am informed by Mr. Turocy that the city has state “MassWorks” funds remaining from this project that have been approved to be carried over into FY14, which the city expects to use to fund the removal of the work that was completed. I am still waiting for an answer, however, to my follow-up questions: 1) what other work is not going to get done because the city is spending the rest of the MassWorks funds to undo the work just completed, and 2) if and when a recommended plan is developed, where is the money going to come from to pay for and implement it? Finally, while I appreciate that public safety and convenience is a priority, I and some of my colleagues are concerned that the decision to scrap the original plan which was docketed by the Mayor and go back and undo the reconfiguration of this intersection has been made without any public discussion or scrutiny by the Public Facilities Committee of the Board of Aldermen, which had originally been asked to review and approve it. It would be a shame, in my view, to compound the current problem by rushing into an expensive “quick fix” without looking at it more carefully in a public forum.
I have a very strong feeling that the almost finished new configuration was the product of sound engineering, based on data collection and rigorous analysis/advanced computer-based modeling. Therefore, its “reversal” only confirms my suspicion that the majority, if not ALL, the decisions that come out of city hall are the result of political calculus by a City Major who desperately wants to please voters, hoping that they will forget his “dead-on-arrival” run for the USA senate in 2011, before his re-election is on the line this coming November 2013. (http://www.wickedlocal.com/newton/setti_warren).
Here’s an update: Mr. Turocy informs me that the city has MassWorks funds available due to lower bid prices than estimated and that no work will be eliminated because of the change, provided that the city does the work now and get the invoices in by the mid-August deadline for the city’s MassWorks1 project. If the city were to delay the work beyond that, or have a different proposal later, it would need to find another source of funds. Finally, at this point, an alternate funding source to implement a different plan in the future has not been identified.
If the Riverside Station special permit is approved, the city and the developer would be applying for MassWorks funds to do some of the proposed roadway improvements in September 2013. I would expect that the state will be looking very closely at how the Newton Centre project turned out when it reviews any such future application.
I believe the stop sign was at least as much a problem as the curb changes and am glad action is being taken to correct the situation. I worry a bit about rushing back to the original design, but it probably makes sense since all they have to do is move curb and sidewalk. They won’t have to pave twice, so perhaps the costs will be minimal.
@dulles sandbag trials are NOT usually effective and were not effective in the case you cited. They only caused more doubt and confusion. Sandbags have huge side-effects on the way drivers perceive the road. It’s very difficult to create a controlled experiment in traffic, but perhaps there are better ways to do it. It would be more interesting to find out why the modeling failed. This outcome did seem obvious to the casual observer.
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that school traffic seems to be the source of traffic jams in our city?
@Chris Steele: word.
I’ll try to hunt down links to the various meetings at which the intersection reconfiguration was discussed. In the meantime, this thought: regardless of how we configure an intersection, the fundamental cause of backups is not the configuration, but the fact that there are too many damn cars on the road.
What Sean said.
The fact that Sean said anything is noteworthy. Welcome back.
Yes, I’m bothered that school traffic is a source of traffic jams in Newton. Getting rid of bus fees would be a simple way to at least partially ameliorate that.
@mgwa, perhaps we could start an online petition to the school committee? This projects seems to provide some very relevant data as to how school-based traffic is ruining our city. Eliminating bus fees could probably make a big difference in the middle schools and high schools, but at the elementary school level, where we still have somewhat decent coverage (not as good as it once was) most kids are just going to have to learn to walk.
Can we face reality here? The intersections of Cypress and Centre, Centre and Beacon and Beacon and Langley have operated, are operating and will operate in a failing mode (Level Of Servise F), unless major restructuring is done.
In 2007 the Newton Centre Task Force received a study by McMahon Associates thta recommended two round-abouts at Centre/Beaco and Beacon/Langley. The report was filed with the BOA and nothing was done to realize these true solutions.
Now the aldermen in their ultimate wisdom decided to please some loud citizens and screwed up one of the intersections. When will we realize that transportation is a science, not a political game?
Sean, “…too many cars on the road”? Why don’t you work on your old idea of setting toll gates around Newton and charging not-Newtonians extra at Newton’s restaurants? Don’t forget the city walls and a moat with draw bridges!
mgwa, removing school bus fees is a good idea but then you’d have pay more taxes.
Adam, kids walking to schools is also a good idea but you can’t make them do that, especially during the inclement weather.
The triangle project didn’t go forward because neighbors and others didn’t want it and felt like it was being shoved down their throats. Have we heard that song before ?
MGWA and Adam,
When I become Mayor, I will be looking into getting rid of the bus fees, instrument fees and sports fees. I feel like you, in that the bus fees cause more cars to be on the road. I feel the sports fees and the instrument fees only operate to once again divide the affluent families with the struggling. This should be part of the educational experience for public schools, To give kids a well rounded education. I will work hard to get rid of that. Where does the money come from? Give me 6 months and a bunch of financial experts and we’ll find millions in cost savings in the school side budget, I assure you.
@ Carlie Shapiro:
“The triangle project”? Which triangle are you talking about, Charlie? The Central triangle with the parking lot or the Fire Station triangle? And what these triangles have to do with the Cypress Street fiasco?
Anatol, if our traffic jams were limited to days with inclement weather, that would be a tremendous improvement. It wasn’t long ago that children were capable of walking in cold or rain also. Now our culture expects children to be driven to the front door of the school, everyday. This is the result.
Adam – a number of Newton kids go to schools where there are no safe walking routes. And prior to bus fees I knew plenty of parents who were happy to have their kids take the bus, especially in families with kids in more than one school which causes logistical problems.
There has been plenty of discussion on this blog about problems with some people paying bus fees while others are free-loaders because passes aren’t checked – bus fees are that much more problematic when people feel like they are saps if they pay.
I was talking about the firefighter’s triangle as the same sort of Aim-Fire-Ready approach was taken with little regard for neighborhood input and wishes.
@Adam — yeah, I wasn’t crazy about the sandbag approach at Daniel/Jackson either. People ended up running them over at Daniel/Jackson — and any sandbags would’ve been run over in Newton Centre within hours. The point being, the city tried a couple different configurations before settling on a final plan. The city could’ve used concrete barriers (i.e., ‘Jersey barriers’) to test drive that curb bumpout of the Centre/Cypress intersection in advance…. and the barrage of complaints would’ve warned them to tread lightly.
@dulles, sandbag trials are effective at raising awareness (good) and creating negative impressions of designs (warranted or not?) but are they good at proving designs? Forcing the city through multiple configurations based on politics, bias, or misconceptions is not what we want. I found that with the sandbags, there were a number of behaviors which invalidated the trials. Many people reacted with curiosity, slowing down, treating the trial like a construction zone. At the other extreme, some, perhaps out of spite, ran over the bags as they started to disintegrate. And to those who resist change, regardless of the merits, sandbags are ugly and only reinforce those feelings. Concrete barriers would certainly have consequences, too. Not everything can be simulated with barriers, but the city has used temporary asphalt curbing with perhaps a bit more success, but other factors like drainage sometimes make that technique difficult.
Kudos to Dave for the reversal; some parts of the project were good, though overall here was no way it was going to work (no L onto Centre St? Crazy! All those vehicles driven now to go L onto Beacon? Which also is one lane? And then what?) A difficult situation there, particularly as two lanes narrow into one, coming into NC from Cypress St., going onto the congested area of NC, where the right lane is taken up with parking. Maybe the suggestion is to eliminate the parking on the Right, the west side of the triangle and have two lanes for southbound traffic. Then you have two lanes coming into the triangle area, crossing Beacon, and continuing as two lanes.
As a Newton resident who often traverses the intersection of Centre and Cypress, both as a driver and pedestrian, I was dismayed to learn that the city is planning to return this intersection to its previous configuration. For all of those Newton residents who have suffered for years driving north on Centre Street, and whose residential streets were overrun by cars diverted from Centre street, this is a very disturbing development.
For many years, driving north on Centre Street through this intersection has had delays at all times of day, even Saturdays. It was a rare rush hour when the traffic wasn’t backed up at least a quarter of a mile, and sometimes more than half a mile. The actual waiting time was compounded by the stress of navigating through the intersection itself with its strange configuration. Frustrated drivers would divert, speeding through residential streets at all times of day.
After the changes earlier this summer, the improvement on Centre Street has been dramatic, with almost no backups. People who previously would do anything to avoid driving north on Centre Street are now choosing that as the route of choice, instead of driving through residential alternatives. To all of those who have waited for years for the city to address the problems on northbound Centre Street, to undo these improvements would be a slap in the face.
Of course, I am aware that northbound traffic on Cypress and Parker streets has gotten worse as a result of these changes, which gave northbound Centre Street the right of way. During the construction in Newton Centre and on Route 9 there were unacceptable backups on these streets. However, I have observed this intersection at many times of day during the last couple of weeks. Often there is no backup on Cypress at all, and even during rush hour the backups are smaller than the backups used to be on Centre Street at the same time of day. This is not surprising given that the traffic study a few years ago found that there were fewer northbound cars entering this intersection from Cypress than from Centre. Even that study understates the difference, because the drivers on Centre Street were there despite the backups — anyone who could possibly avoid driving north on Centre Street was already doing so, whereas it will take months before the Parker and Cypress street traffic similarly adjusts downward. While some people will have a longer drive than they used to as a result of the current configuration, overall delays have been reduced.
Furthermore, the intersection in its old configuration was unnatural and dangerous. Cars driving north on Center Street needed to avoid cars coming from almost directly behind them to the right and cars in front turning left onto Cypress, leading to numerous accidents. It required a brave pedestrian to cross the Centre Street crosswalk with drivers’ attention already overloaded from negotiating these traffic streams. In the new configuration the situation is improved because the drivers going north on Cypress only have to interact with the cars going in one direction on Centre Street, as is true for right-turning cars at any normal T intersection.
I hope the DPW will do what is right for the City of Newton overall, and keep the intersection in its new, sensible configuration. They have already had plenty of input from people adversely affected during the construction, but they haven’t heard the other side of the story. If you are one of the many people who has benefited from the change at Centre and Cypress, please let your Aldermen, the DPW Commissioner, and the Mayor know.