Follow complaints about dangerous traffic patterns at the Concord/Danforth Street intersection, the Traffic Commission earlier this week voted to recommend that Danforth Street become one way again from Concord Street to Cottage Street.
Unfortunately, that will do nothing to solve the main problem residents want the city to address: Cars that make a left turn onto Danforth from Concord Street.
The problem is sight lines. Turning cars often can’t see traffic driving up Concord Street, and cars driving north on Concord Street can’t see the turning cars. The issue is especially bad when cars are stopped in the left-turn lane on Concord Street while the traffic going straight continues to flow. Those stopped cars often block all possibility of the moving vehicles being able to see each other.
One obvious solution would be to stop traffic before Danforth, so that cars can see each other. That is the plan for a longer-term reconstruction of the area. However, there’s no indication when work will begin on that project, which has already been designed.
Another solution would be once again prohibiting left turns onto Danforth. However, that comes with its own problems, because vehicles need to get into the city parking lot that is only accessible from Danforth. Routing all that traffic onto Mechanic Street instead, as one commission member noted, would mean adding to issues on a narrow, two-way road with parking on both sides and no sidewalks.
The commission’s recommendation will be sent to the City Council.
A recording of the Traffic Commission meeting is at
http://207.172.210.8:5002/CablecastPublicSite/show/2894?channel=1
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