Post Road is Officially Going on a "Road Diet"

The North Kingstown Town Council voted unanimously last week in spoort of a state Department of Transportation plan, paving the way for the DOT to reduce travel lanes on a stretch of Post Road in a so-called “road diet” to improve safety and traffic flow.

From West Main Street near Wickford Village to Maxwell Drive near Camp Avenue, the four travel lanes will be reduced to two and a center turning lane will be added to the middle of the roadway.

The work is expected to be done sometime over the next year and at last week’s Town Council meeting, Public Works Director Phil Bergeron said the town will request the work is done before next spring. Sewer work along the Post Road is expected to begin by then and the situation could be confusing if work is being done at the same time as the road diet is being implemented.

Road diets are increasingly becoming a preferred method of reducing traffic fatalities. The DOT has been pushing for lane reductions across the state on narrow four-lane roads. Recently, Bristol Ferry Road in Portsmouth to Bristol was reduced. Though there were some initial complaints about the potential for backups, the DOT says most drivers haven’t encountered major problems and there’s no question safety has improved.

Portsmouth Police Chief Thomas Lee told their council about a month-and-a-half after the Bristol Ferry Road road diet that officers responded to just one minor accident since the lane reduction.

The DOT in 2013 said that there were more than 200 crashes in one year along the two-mile stretch of road and road diets tend to decrease speeds and crash rates by double digit margins.

With the two-lane setup, motorists tend to “jockey” for position with either lane traveling at different speeds. The lane reduction and shoulder expansion would also be safer for pedestrians.