What should we do with the troubles at Centre and Cypress? The short answer: leave the geometry alone (at least for now), add a stop sign on Centre northbound (heading into the intersection), and return the right-of-way to southbound traffic from Centre to Cypress. Big (and valid) complaints are masking some fundamental goodness.
The political hot potato is the backup in the northbound lanes. In the original configuration, northbound traffic backed up on Centre. Folks inconvenienced by that backup are delighted with the new configuration. The backup has shifted to Parker. My neighbors (I live just off Parker) are understandably upset. A stop sign for northbound Centre would balance the backup, traffic into the intersection would alternate from Cypress and Centre. Better than before for Centre, not quite as bad as now for Parker.
The next major issue with the new configuration is the backup to Beacon of traffic waiting for a gap to turn left onto Cypress southbound. The previous configuration gave that traffic the right-of-way over northbound traffic merging from Centre. Now, that southbound-to-Cypress traffic queues subordinate to northbound-from-Centre traffic. Adding a stop sign for northbound-from-Centre traffic will return the right-of-way to the southbound-to-Cypress drivers and eliminate the possibility of backup to Beacon.
Whatever we do, we shouldn’t return to the old configuration. Whatever problems there are with the new, those problems don’t constitute validation of the old design. The new design dramatically shortens the pedestrian crossing, slows southbound-to-Cypress traffic, and eliminates the frequent problem of impatient drivers from Centre going around more patient drivers in front of them. While the new design has created some change-related anxiety, the entire intersection reads more clearly and offers fewer opportunities for conflict.
Let’s try some small changes that should relieve the big pressures, live with the intersection for a while, and, if we do end up with a redesign, make it an improvement on both the old and the new.
Need to put back the ability to turn right from Cypress to Centre to Beacon and make it a full lane so things can flow more easily (as the actual original traffic study suggested). As is, the backups are self evident and will be even worse when school starts.
Sean, thanks for posting this. The BOA is going to be asked to approve the restoration of the original configuration tonight with an emergency preamble to allow the work to proceed immediately. Among the questions I submitted was whether there were steps that could be taken to improve the situation while DPW does a comprehensive study of the intersection to figure out how to address the safety and traffic issues that the reconfiguration was supposed to resolve. While I have yet to receive a response, the city’s director of transportation will be present to answer questions tonight.
I have heard from residents on both sides of the issue and from the ward aldermen who support the plan to restore the original configuration even though it won’t solve the previously existing safety and traffic issues. Quite aside from the enormous waste of taxpayer money involved, I am concerned that once school starts again in the fall there are going to be serious traffic backups no matter what the city does. But the aldermen from the ward argue that the traffic will be much worse if things remain as they are and that, with the first day of school right around the corner, it just can’t wait.
I invite you and the other residents of Village 14 to tell me how you would respond to this argument.
Ted says:
Enormous? Isn’t the estimated cost of moving the curbline in question somewhere in the $20K-40K range? There were significant improvements made as part of this project to the adjacent intersection which will remain in place, among them concurrent crossing which gives about 30 seconds of extra green time to the traffic cycle.
If school traffic is really the cause of our woes (not only the extra trips, but how it concentrates traffic along certain routes, like Parker Street) we ought to look hard at why so many parents feel it necessary to drive their kids to school, and why the city has disincentives in place for parents to send their kids to school on the bus. We also ought to do a more effective job as a city lobbying MassDOT to fix the regional highways that are overflowing onto our streets, not make them worse.
Sean’s concept (Stop signs at both Centre & Cypress) works in theory, but I think there’s a problem in practice. People in this state expect Stop signs to be either one direction, two opposite directions (side street crossing a main street), or all directions — never two out of three, or three out of four. I suspect it could make accidents more likely as people northbound from Centre will think it’s “their turn”, rather than understanding that southbound, left-turning traffic onto Cypress has priority. A Yield sign does a better job informing drivers that other traffic has priority. But a Stop on Cypress and a Yield on Centre and would really louse things up.
@Ted, I’m suspicious about the “higher than average” accident statistics, and the four head-on collisions that Traffic Solutions cited to justify reworking Centre/Cypress. Relative to the volume of traffic, the accidents at that intersection didn’t seem far out of whack (but I’m no traffic engineer). I asked at the meeting about the severity of the head-on collisions, was told they (traffic mgm’t/police department) would look into it, and never got an answer. I strongly suspect, given the nature of the old intersection, that all cases were low-speed incidents without reported injuries. The “old” intersection seemed scary, but I suspect it was not as dangerous as we’re led to believe.
Adam, I have asked the administration what was spent to reconfigure the intersection, and the reply was that this was part of a $1.8 million project and the cost for the Cypress/Centre intersection was “indeterminate.” I find it hard to believe DPW has no idea what that intersection cost for design and construction, but the fact that this work will be undone is still a waste of taxpayer money. As Paul Levy pointed out recently on another blog thread, the city could and should have tested the design before spending an “indeterminate” amount of tax dollars reconfiguring an intersection that will now be undone.
Ted, I believe the $1.8M included work on other intersections under the MassWorks grant, such as Parker & Route 9. We’re talking about a small portion of one of those projects. Sure, it’s wasteful that something has to be redone and frustrating we don’t have line item costs, but we all know it’s a small piece of the work we’re talking about. The opportunity cost of this design was missing out on the additional signal MassDOT would have funded and built — something the city may now end up having to fund.
And as I argued on Paul’s blog simply running a trial may not be as easy as it seems. The change in right of way or curb line changes alone almost certainly would not have produced the desired effect to increase traffic flow (sometimes it isn’t even possible to simulate a curb line due to drainage or existing structures) The hope of the engineers, as I heard it at TC, was that the increased traffic flow from the concurrent crossing would reduce congestion in the intersection such that a full stop on one street (vs a yield on the other) would not cause even more disastrous queueing. I was and remain skeptical. You couldn’t simulate concurrent crossing without doing it — retiming the signals, which required new equipment and safer crossings, etc.
@dulles – 2/3 stop signs certainly presents problems, but it’s not unprecedented. The MUTCD has signs for “oncoming traffic does not stop”. Probably not much less awkward than the left-turn-yields-right-of-way sign that’s up there now (where have you ever seen one of those? Not part of the MUTCD…) Two stop signs certainly won’t improve traffic flow, though.
I think that intersection probably needs a traffic light, not stop signs. The light could be configured like some others in Newton to go to blinking red/yellow at night. It’s a difficult intersection no matter where you put stop/yield signs.
@Adam (re: Oncoming Traffic does not Stop) — It’s not a common sign so I wasn’t familiar with it — if the traffic flow is reversed, whether northbound Centre uses a Stop or Yield, we could *definitely* use one of those. Thanks.
@mgwa — also agreed, I think a traffic light synchronized with Centre/Beacon would be a surefire (but pricier) long-term solution to Centre/Cypress traffic management.
Let’s not overplay the “waste” card. We’re trying to make things safer and more pedestrian-friendly in our village centers. As Adam noted, it was probably impossible to properly trial this reconfiguration. And, from experience, folks who don’t like the outcome of a trial are rarely reluctant to claim the trial was flawed and unrepresentative of actually changed conditions.
Sometimes, we just have to try some things. And such experiments can cost money.
@Dulles – but would it be much pricier than completely undoing and then redoing something there? Could a light work with the reconfiguration to ameliorate the problems without undoing the construction?
Having grown up in a city with a light at every intersection, I’m often shocked at some of the places Newton doesn’t have lights where they would clearly help (for example, where Centre goes under Rte. 9).
@mgwa — How long is it going to take the city to budget for, source, take delivery, install and synchronize a new traffic light? How deep into the school year are we going to be by then? How much pent-up anger will there be among Newton’s voting public over this issue by that time?
I do think a traffic light would be a surefire solution, one that maybe should’ve been done in the first place. Now we’ve got about 2 1/2 weeks to apply a fix and the clock is ticking.
@dulles I asked Commissioner Turocy about a signal–he said the conduit is already in, so at least that doesn’t need to be installed.
The signal will take at least six months to procure & install, synchronize, etc.
Can’t answer the pent-up anger question. It may be less than you think.
@dulles – I would hate to see a bad stopgap put into place solely because a known good solution would take a few months. And a lot of people have had to live with bad traffic situations for months at a time during construction – it’s not like Newton Centre residents are the first people in Newton to have to put up with traffic headaches.
@mgwa — I also would hate to see a bad stopgap. But in this case, I don’t see how the proposed revisions, or un-visions? (opening up the northbound bottleneck, swapping road signs, road paint) would interfere with installing any traffic light in the future. It’s an interim step that gives vital breathing room for a future fix.
As for construction, people will put up with construction since a fix is in progress. Leaving something broken in place for six months or longer because of a desire to get it right — when there are obvious and immediate problems that need to be addressed — would seem to me a bureaucratic failure.