Keefe Road Controversy

The Gymnastics Academy community (12 Keefe Road) has grown increasingly over the years while the limited amount of parking has remained stagnant. Concerned citizen, George Wrenn, has witnessed a number of safety issues regarding parking and speeding hazards along Keefe Road, particularly alongside the Gymnastics Academy.

At the Board of Selectmen Meeting Monday night, Wrenn went in front of the Board to propose that there be a speed limit sign placed on Keefe Road and also requested that the town place “tow-zone” signs along the street.

“There are several other businesses on Keefe Road…and we haven’t really had any illegal parking issues with the other businesses, it has just been primarily the Gymnastics Academy customers that have been violating the no parking signs,” said Wrenn.

Jamison Loizeaux, General Manager of the Gymnastic Academy has been a proactive participant in dealing with the on-street parking issue. Loizeaux recognizes that there are a limited amount of places to park and addressed the issue by placing mulch buckets alongside the shoulder of the building, blocking cars from parking there.

Wrenn insisted that there should be a speed limit sign put in place on Keefe Road because he has witnessed cars flying down the street and nearly hitting clients from the Academy coming out of their cars. Wrenn is concerned about the children’s safety because that street is congested.  

According to Detective Robert Cowan, a 6-day traffic study was done on that street to document the average speed of a vehicle, and what was found was that the average speed of a car on Keefe Road was 22 mph – with no sporadic documentations reaching a speed faster than 40 mph.

“I just don’t see that there is an issue here,” said Cowan. “This town has so many roads that have legitimate issues and this isn’t one of them. It is a situation where you have a few residents mingling with businesses and you are going to have this type of situation when you live there.” 

A bit of back and forth

Board of Selectmen Chair, Mike Gowing, points out that even though Wrenn has made some good observations, there has been no reports of accidents or injuries to support his requests.

“I appreciate that you sit there and look out your window for this stuff, and you may have witnessed near misses and there may be incidences where cars speed down the road, however that doesn’t necessarily mean that the town is responsible to do something about it as long as we are within the law,” said Gowing.

Wrenn responds, “I believe that a part of safety is preventing accidents…”

Gowing interrupts, “…and since there have been no accidents I’d have to say that we’re doing pretty darn fine then.”

 “Well we’ve been pretty damn lucky,” said Wrenn.

“Well, there is no 100 percent guarantee on anything Mr. Wrenn,” said Gowing.

The Board credited Jamison for the way he has dealt with this issue.

“I give you all the credit in the world for trying to do the best you can with a poor circumstance – whomever allowed the building to be built there, that close to the road was a Board much earlier than this one,” said Gowing.

The Board also decided that there does not need to be an additional action put in place to deal with the issue.