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Date: 4/18/2022
LUDLOW – During the Ludlow Planning Board’s April 14 meeting, the board met with representatives from the Safety Committee and Board of Public Works to discuss safety issues at the intersection adjacent to Starbucks on Center Street.
To start the discussion, Planning Board Vice Chair Raymond Phoenix recapped the discussions that led to the meeting between the three boards.
“I think everybody knows Center Street, especially around the pike, is a rough area to get through safely – we’ve had some people come in recently through the internet, letters and I think an individual came into the Board of Selectmen as well to speak about some of the issues they had,” he said.
Phoenix said he hoped the meeting would serve as the start of a larger dialogue about the future of that intersection.
“I think it’s good that we, as a combination of boards, have a dialogue around what’s going on and try and figure out if there’s anything we can do in the here and now to try to mitigate it. As we move forward the businesses there over time are going to change hands and other things will be happening in the area, what do we do with those in order to be a little more proactive?” he said.
In a letter to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) from the town’s Assistant Engineer, James Goodreau, he outlined a potential change to the intersection that would include striping the travel lane closest to Starbucks to prevent people from traveling in that lane and causing accidents.
Because the area is near a state highway, any changes would be required to go through MassDOT and the Department of Public Works is required to do the work. The review process from MassDOT could take several weeks.
Safety Committee member and Police Sgt. Brian Shameklis discussed the number of accidents at that spot over the past several years.
“There have been 83 accidents in the last five years just in this intersection alone dealing with Starbucks. The next highest is 40 and that’s the Mass Pike itself, it is the exit and the intersection of the Mass Pike. The good majority of these accidents is we have vehicles getting on the Pike taking the bike lane and vehicles are turning left into the plaza and t-boning those vehicles,” he said.
One potential problem with the proposal to MassDOT is the potential traffic back up closing the lane could cause.
“That was one of the concerns of the DOT engineer. We need to make sure that we maintain the capability of the road and not back people up so much. We’re trying to do it on a temporary basis to see if there is a drop in accidents or people follow the rules of the road,” Shameklis said.
Phoenix said that because of how much traffic flows through Center Street it is necessary to have a heightened awareness about the safety issues along the road. He suggested that the board could speak with special permit holders to help make the area safer.
“Having those special permits in place, we can do a little bit more to tell them, if they want to keep that drive through, you need to do some things to help us straighten out this area,” he said.
Phoenix said that another way to help make the area safer would be eliminating some of the curb cuts that allow traffic through.
Board member Josh Carpenter also suggested implementing a “no left turn” sign at the curb cut next to Starbucks to prevent people from cutting across the three lanes. Safety Committee member and Police Officer Ryan Churchill said implementing that change would be hard to enforce.
“With something like that the burden falls on the Police Department because ultimately it is a compliance thing, we’ve already taught the public how to drive there and now we’re going to change it. You talk about resources, time of day, traffic stops and that in and of itself becomes problematic,” he said.
If the proposal to MassDOT is accepted, the boards agreed to leave the stripes in place for at least a year to get an idea of the accident rates in each season.
Phoenix added that it was imperative that the three boards maintain communication over the intersection.
“I’d like to try and keep some kind of dialogue going about other opportunities we may or may not have to change the direction this is going. The more people we can get it together, I think the better off we’re going to be. I don’t know that any one of our groups is going to solve the problem, we need to find something together,” he said.
While no motion was required, each board agreed to continue to maintain an open dialogue about what happens next for the intersection, including the results of the proposal to MassDOT. To help move the proposal through MassDOT, the boards agreed to reach out to the Police Department stating that the intersection was a safety hazard and to gather more data about accidents in that area.