What's worse than making an infrastructure decision without sufficient public input? Undoing the change before it has had a chance to be properly tested. Boston.com reports:
The city of Newton is reversing course and undoing some modifications recently made at a busy intersection in Newton Centre, after discovering the changes had made traffic worse, not better.
The city attempted to speed traffic flow through the congested intersection of Parker and Cypress Streets at Centre Street by narrowing the lanes and adding a stop sign, but the new modifications have created more backups, said Commissioner of Public Works David Turocy.
As early as next week, workers will start undoing the modifications to return the intersection to its old configuration.
I think there is an unreported back story: This is government at work in an election year. Many of my friends and neighbors complained to the Mayor's Office about the change and the politically correct administration decided to cave. (I actually found that the intersection worked better with the change.) Why did they complain? First, the reconfiguration required a small change in driving habits. (Previously, traffic entering from Centre Street would have to yield. Now, the traffic from Cypress Street would have to yield.) Second, the road is still roughed up, without final paving, and traffic slows because of that. Third, the temporary signage at the intersection is not optimal. People are not yet used to the change, and so the improvement in traffic flow that was envisioned has not yet been achieved.
Most importantly, though, there was insufficient public consultation and communication during the design process.
By the way, there was a logic to the change. In a guest column in the local paper, the chair of the mayor's Transportation Advisory Group and the Pedestrian Coordinator noted:
The reconfiguration . . .was implemented to reduce crashes between vehicles and normalize it with other intersections (taking away the left-turning priority and giving the right of way to the through traffic.)
These behaviors lead to the kind of pedestrian crashes we see across the city including the two in newton Centre in November, when elderly Newton residents were hit in two separate incidents.
. . . .The number of legal travel lanes for cars remains the same.
It's hard, though, to sell a project that will save lives because no one can envision the people who have yet to be injured.
Perhaps all of this could have been avoided if there had been a proper public consultation process before the streets were torn up. Meanwhile, what a waste of money:
The intersection was being remodeled as part of a $1.8-million contract from the state, said Turocy, that included work on two other intersections as well as a street paving. He said he did not know how much the work on Cypress and Centre Streets cost, but that the city had funds leftover in the grant which would pay for the reversal of the construction.
This makes it sound like the result was costless to the citizenry. Obviously, that is not so. At a minimum, there was an opportunity cost, in that the funds could have been spent elsewhere. But, also, all of Newton's residents pay state taxes, so that was our money.
The city of Newton is reversing course and undoing some modifications recently made at a busy intersection in Newton Centre, after discovering the changes had made traffic worse, not better.
As early as next week, workers will start undoing the modifications to return the intersection to its old configuration.
I think there is an unreported back story: This is government at work in an election year. Many of my friends and neighbors complained to the Mayor's Office about the change and the politically correct administration decided to cave. (I actually found that the intersection worked better with the change.) Why did they complain? First, the reconfiguration required a small change in driving habits. (Previously, traffic entering from Centre Street would have to yield. Now, the traffic from Cypress Street would have to yield.) Second, the road is still roughed up, without final paving, and traffic slows because of that. Third, the temporary signage at the intersection is not optimal. People are not yet used to the change, and so the improvement in traffic flow that was envisioned has not yet been achieved.
Most importantly, though, there was insufficient public consultation and communication during the design process.
By the way, there was a logic to the change. In a guest column in the local paper, the chair of the mayor's Transportation Advisory Group and the Pedestrian Coordinator noted:
The reconfiguration . . .was implemented to reduce crashes between vehicles and normalize it with other intersections (taking away the left-turning priority and giving the right of way to the through traffic.)
These behaviors lead to the kind of pedestrian crashes we see across the city including the two in newton Centre in November, when elderly Newton residents were hit in two separate incidents.
. . . .The number of legal travel lanes for cars remains the same.
It's hard, though, to sell a project that will save lives because no one can envision the people who have yet to be injured.
Perhaps all of this could have been avoided if there had been a proper public consultation process before the streets were torn up. Meanwhile, what a waste of money:
The intersection was being remodeled as part of a $1.8-million contract from the state, said Turocy, that included work on two other intersections as well as a street paving. He said he did not know how much the work on Cypress and Centre Streets cost, but that the city had funds leftover in the grant which would pay for the reversal of the construction.
This makes it sound like the result was costless to the citizenry. Obviously, that is not so. At a minimum, there was an opportunity cost, in that the funds could have been spent elsewhere. But, also, all of Newton's residents pay state taxes, so that was our money.
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