Melrose Traffic Commission Is Gridlock

MELROSE, MA — In a traffic commission meeting that took as long as a drive from Melrose to New York City, the theme was clear. Melrose has a lot of people, the city's roads aren't getting any bigger, and many believe various forms of signage is the only elixir around.

Roughly 50 Melrose residents popped in and out of Wednesday night's four-hour meeting at City Hall. Yep, four hours of parking spots, one-way streets, and stop signs.

The first half of the meeting was chatty and largely uneventful. Make sure to subscribe to Melrose Patch for more local news and real-time alerts

An update on traffic data gathered over a one-week sample was presented by Sgt. John Goc. West Emerson saw 8,375 vehicles driving westbound going toward Fellsway, and 6,016 coming in eastbound toward Main. That's 1,439 a day, 60 per hour, and 1 per minute. Relatively low volume, Goc said.

The average speed of those vehicles was 26 miles per hour. Eighty-one percent of vehicles were going under 30 mph. Only 2.8 were doing over 35 mph.

West Emerson is high on the list to get electronic speed sign undetermined location, the committee said. Melrose can purchase four more solar speed signs. Where they would go is being determined, but Sylvan and West Emerson have been requested. Grove is another possibility.

On to the fun stuff...

Requests for two "No Parking Opposite Driveway" signs to go back up across from First Street near the Winthrop School were denied, and a request for various "No Parking" signage on Mt. Vernon Ave. and Potomac Street was denied. In fact, some on the committee made it clear the recent influx in requests for "no parking" signs is getting a bit out of hand.

A request to make Malvern Street a one-way from Lebanon Street to Linwood Ave. was also denied. Several residents spoke against the proposal, echoing the sentiments of many Patch readers who saw an early version of the meeting's agenda. An area resident who graduated Melrose High in 1946 made the one-way request following his being in an accident.

Read also: Melrose Traffic Is Getting Worse, U.S. Census Says

Then the discussions got exceptionally lengthy. A request to make Reading Hill Road "Resident Parking Only" saw several residents speak in favor of the proposal. One woman said she hasn't been able to park in front of her house for over a year. The commission, hesitant to grant what are very rare cases of "Resident Parking Only" signs in Melrose, motioned instead to approve a two-hour parking restriction between 8 a.m. - 6 p.m., Mon.- Sat. The move, the residents hoped, would keep patients of a nearby dental office off their road.

The marathon discussion of the evening was in regards to a proposal to enforce weekday parking restrictions on Sargent Street from Franklin Street to West Highland Avenue to prevent long-term commuter parking/business parking. When members on the commission pointed out there is nothing stopping employees of nearby business parking on streets, Sgt. Goc asked if a neighborhood necessarily should be dealing with constant employee parking on residential streets.

A raucous group of Brazil Street residents waited hours to speak up about the only city-requested item on the agenda. The engineering division made a request to remove "Resident Parking Only" signs from Brazil Street and replace with "2 Hour Parking from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM Monday - Friday" signs. The signs were initially put there largely due to the RMV, but one committee member noted there was no language stating that the signs would have to go if the RMV ever did. The general argument from the residents boiled down to "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And thus, there was a win for the Little Guy and Brazil Street kept its signs.

A resident had proposed a four-way stop sign at the intersection of East Foster Street and Dell Ave. More than three hours into the meeting, after a few residents spoke in favor of the four-way stop sign and one resident spoke against it, the committee suggested the intersection wouldn't meet the national criteria necessary to implement a stop sign. The residents pushed the committee to have police test some data and revisit the item, but Sgt. Goc seemed to dismiss any possibility of the volume of vehicles at Dell Ave. to reach the necessary amount.

(As this reporter can attest - standards or not - the eye test tells you a four-way stop sign at the intersection would go a long way in making for safer driving.)

The meeting continued to move into its fourth hour, and as Mayor Robert Dolan was being voted into a new position in Lynnfield, Patch pivoted toward that story.

Photo by Mike Carraggi