Beverly To Add Traffic Patrols, Daily Street Detour Near Closed Bridge

BEVERLY, MA — A daily morning closure of Kernwood Heights, increased traffic enforcement and a new crosswalk on Woodland Avenue are among the mitigation efforts planned for the Ryal Side area of the city that is bearing the brunt of detours amid the Hall-Whitaker Bridge shut down.

Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill outlined the new measures — some of which may be temporary and some extended as the neighborhood stares at a decade or longer of bridge work in the area — during a community meeting on Tuesday night as the city looks to respond to residents blindsided with additional vehicles following the state deeming the Hall-Whitaker bridge unsafe and permanently closing it in June.

Cahill said there will also be a meeting within the week with state Department of Transporation officials on the timeline of the replacement of both the Hall-Whitaker and Kernwood bridges, which state officials said at a meeting last month could take 13 years before completion.

"We're going to dig into that with them and challenge that," Cahill told the neighborhood meeting of residents at Beverly High School. "Look, it may all hold up in terms of just how long it takes to deal with several federal regulatory agencies and several state agencies. But we're trying to dig into that with them and push it."

In the short term, Cahill said that after Thanksgiving that Kernwood Heights will be closed near the elementary school from 7:30 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. on school days.

"I don't know how long," Cahill said. "We are going to try it and see how it goes. We know there will be impacts on other streets because people who can't come up that way will go someplace else.

"Hopefully this will make a positive difference in the neighborhood and for families going to and from the school. If it works and is well-received by the whole neighborhood we'll probably continue it. We're going to try it out."

Cahill said the city will also spend most, if not all, of the $100,000 earmarked in the $3.8 billion state economic development bill to hire a third full-time traffic officer. While that position will not be specifically designated for that neighborhood, he said it is understood that resources will have to be devoted to that area for the length of the extended bridge work.

Police Chief John LeLacheur said in the meantime the city will use resources from the State Police barracks in Danvers to augment enforcement.

"A sea of blue lights will get into people's minds that they have to slow down," LeLacheur said.

Ward 1 City Councilor Todd Rotondo did note, however, that traffic monitoring indicated that speeding over the 25-mile-per-hour city limit is not as much of a problem as residents may believe it to be.

"A lot of the speeding is perception, not reality," he said, noting that the dramatic increase in traffic volume is likely leading to that perception.

While the city can take steps to reduce the speed of the cars cutting through neighborhoods, Cahill allowed there is little to be done about that sheer amount of sidestreet traffic while the main ways of getting over the river are closed or under construction.

"It's not really about reducing the volume (of vehicles)," he said. "It's more about: How do we ensure safety as people are driving over these streets?"

Cahill said there will also be a new crosswalk installed on Woodland Avenue "just to the school side of Livingstone Avenue" that will be ADA-compliant.

City Director of Engineering Michael Collins said other requests, such as lowering the speed limit in the neighborhoods or introducing speed bumps, are either not allowed under state law or would be ineffective.

"Speed humps are being deployed in communities around us in ways that are not really solving a problem," he said, adding that "distracted drivers are the ones that need to be reached in a 'financial' way (through citations)."

"This is something that we're going to be dealing with for a long time," Rotondo concluded. "It's a nightmare no matter what you do.

"There is no easy solution."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)