Tackling Decades-Old Swampscott Traffic, Pedestrian Safety Concerns

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A recurring topic with a lot of familiar discussion points included the timeline of some longer-term solutions to decades-old resident concerns about Swampscott traffic and pedestrian safety at Wednesday night's Select Board meeting.

For the second time in less than two months, those concerns took center stage at the public meeting with Police Chief Ruben Quesada reiterating many of Capt. Joseph Kable's assertions from June that the answer to making residents feel safer is education and targeted infrastructure improvements over simply more widespread enforcement and citations issued.

"I've only been here a year and a half and I can tell you as the police chief that I've heard nothing but issues and challenges about traffic safety," Quesada said. "Our community does not feel safe crossing the street. They do not feel safe walking down the sidewalk. This is a major issue for us as the police department and for me as a police chief."

What to do about it, however, is more nuanced as some Select Board members have pushed for added speed humps or pillows, as well as increased patrols, to create the impression, at least, that you speed and avoid traffic safety laws in Swampscott at your own wallet's peril.

But Quesada once again pushed back on that as the primary fix for the safety concerns.

He told the Select Board that there were 133 accidents in the town last year compared to 166 the year before, and 1,453 citations issued in 2022 compared to 1,211 in 2021, yet the "perception" that Swampscott roads are unsafe has persisted.

"I am not here to talk about enforcement because enforcement only gets you so far," he said before adding. "I've heard from countless individuals I've spoken to about how they do not feel safe walking down Humphrey Street. I, as police chief, as well as our team, have to do something about that — whether it's perception or not."

The plan laid out on Wednesday includes a series of PSAs on crosswalk, biking and pedestrian safety, as well as school and community forums, to educate the public on how to feel secure on the roads, sidewalks and while crossing the street, as well as the use of grant money for some added patrols aimed at detecting impaired or distracted drivers.

Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said the town has or is in the process of installing eight rapid-reflecting beacons, repainting and restriping crosswalks, adding crosswalk bump outs to Humphrey Street, Orchard Road and Orchard Circle, and temporary speed bumps on Puritan Road, Pine Street, Setson Avenue and Franklin Avenue, as well as putting up a speed warning sign on Humphrey Street.

The longer-term strategy involves a Beta group survey under contract to identify which areas of the town are actually more dangerous and a timeline to make targeted infrastructure improvements to those roads and intersections by November if deemed necessary.

"We want to have a capital plan each year that supports public safety," Fitzgerald said. "It's not going to be a one-and-done appropriation."

While the presentation did not spur the vigorous exchanges between Select Board members and public safety officials seen at previous meetings, Select Board member MaryEllen Fletcher did voice skepticism about the lack of focus on the enforcement aspect of traffic control.

"I am not really sold on education and the warm and fuzzy stuff," she said. "I have to be honest that one mechanism to getting people to slow down is to pull them over, give them a warning and, if you're handing out multiple warnings, then you can give them a ticket."

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