Thursday, August 12, 1999 Older Editions

Selectmen try to remedy Ballardvale congestion

By Neil Fater

The Byrds sang "To everything, turn turn turn." Apparently, they weren't driving on Andover or River streets during certain hours.

Specific turns on those streets have been banned by Andover selectmen.

Looking to solve a traffic problem in the Ballardvale area, selectmen are restricting traffic on two Ballardvale streets during the busiest time of day. The restrictions will be tried for 60 days once signs are created and installed.

Monday through Friday, for 60 days, selectmen have deemed there will be:

o no right hand turn from Andover Street onto River Street, from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.; and

o no left hand turn from River Street to Andover Street from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. and from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.

The purpose of these changes is to force employees driving to and from Ballardvale and Wilmington businesses to use Interstate 93 and Route 125 to get to work.

Ballardvale residents such as those on Clark Road have been complaining about local employees clogging their streets during these hours.

But Police Chief Brian Pattullo says he believes this decision will only move traffic onto other side streets in town.

"Although it may seem a simple solution for residents of a particular neighborhood to say, 'Put up some signs that say, "No traffic on my street,"' it can have effects on other streets," says Pattullo. "We try to look at the whole picture, on a global scale for the entire town."

Pattullo says he expects that while the change may help some streets, it will increase traffic on streets such as Andover, Woburn and Abbot streets.

"I don't think the residents of Andover Street are more deserving of traffic than the people on Clark Road or River Street," says Pattullo.

He also says the change will mean more drivers will be crossing lanes of oncoming traffic to get to their businesses, in part because people will simply make U-turns or try alternate side streets.

"There's going to be more traffic at some very dangerous intersections," he says.

Pattullo says that school buses will be excused from the rule, because routes have been established, but that all residents, local business employees and delivery people will have to obey the signs.

Other votes

In addition to voting for the turning restrictions, selectmen also instructed Town Manager Buzz Stapczynski to push the state to install a new I-93 interchange, and to extend Burtt Road. They believe both of these moves would allow traffic to flow from I-93 to businesses on the Wilmington line, without bringing the traffic through Ballardvale streets.

Selectmen also encouraged Ballardvale business Genetics Institute to fund two police traffic details, and to form a traffic management association (TMA) such as one that is credited with improving traffic problems in the River Road area of town.

TMAs are made up of businesses in a particular area that agree to work together to solve mutual traffic problems.

"The TMA in the River Road section has been extremely successful," says Pattullo. "They all got together as businesses and staggered their start times, their release times, and complied very well. It was a success and they're constantly working on things. I think a TMA would work in this area with Gillette and Genetics."

Skip Hartwell, a Genetics representative and Sagamore Drive resident, says Genetics is willing to pay to help solve traffic problems - if the town does not prevent it from expanding.

"Genetics wants to be part of the solution and in order to be part of the solution we need to be able to do business in the community," says Hartwell.

But to do business the company must be allowed to expand, he says.

"Our funds are tied up in litigation or in trying to help the community," says Hartwell.

Provided Genetics is allowed to expand, he says it will agreed to:

o fund a TMA for one year;

o pay for two police traffic details while the town tries its turning restrictions; and

o hire a security officer to prevent people from making U-turns in a private lot, to avoid the turning restrictions.

Background

Many Ballardvale residents have complained about the traffic in their neighborhood for some time. However, when Genetics Institute recently talked of expanding their business, that was "the last straw," for Ballardvale residents, says Selectman Mary French.

A task force was formed to address the traffic issue and it studied ways to encourage workers to use the highways, instead of cutting through Andover side streets.

Behind a 7-3 vote, the 15 member task force recommended selectmen install five different road restrictions in the Ballardvale area. The two turning restrictions approved by selectmen were part of the task force's recommendation.

(Meanwhile, police recommended enforcing existing traffic restrictions. They suggested that if police enforced a stop sign at the end of River Street, that enforcement could back up traffic enough that many motorists would seek an alternate route, such as taking the highways.)

There was debate about the task force's recommended trial restrictions at Monday's meeting, even among task force members.

"It's an experiment, and experiments are good where I come from," says Roger Turpening, of Clark Road. "These signs here may work, we think very well will work, but they may have some unintended consequences we'll want to address later on."

Turpening says that because the changes would be tried for just a short period, any problems could be corrected at the end of the trial period.

"I don't mind experiments, but anyone who's taken a high school chemistry class knows that experiments sometimes blow up," says John Desmond, of Andover Street.

Desmond says he believes that the task force's recommendations will simply shift more traffic to Andover Street.

"We have had houses that were literally struck by cars," says Desmond. "I ask this Board of Selectmen to vote for safety first and handle the nuisance factor later."