Friday, September 28, 2007

What are some of the problems on Willow Avenue?

We're busy collecting data about what works and doesn't on Willow Ave. David Booth and Melora Rush live on Elm Street near the corner of Willow. David emailed me the following pictures and comments:

The intersection of Willow Avenue and Elm Street and Beech Street (see Figure 1) is hazardous to pedestrians. We have seen a number of accidents – both vehicle and pedestrian -- during the 8 years that we have lived here. There are two main problems:

  1. There is no stop sign for Elm Street traffic at the Willow/Beech intersection, so Elm Street vehicles traveling through the intersection sometimes go quite fast.

  2. Pedestrian crossing of Willow from East to West on the North side of Elm (see Figure 2) is particularly hazardous because:

a. Vehicles traveling West on Elm zoom around the corner onto Willow, partly because it is not a sharp turn, and partly because there is no stop sign.

b. Visibility for these vehicles (and for pedestrians) is often partially obstructed by other vehicles parked in front of Ace Wheel Works on Elm at the corner of Willow.

c. A pedestrian cannot readily watch for vehicles rapidly approaching from behind (on Elm), in addition to watching for vehicles coming from the front (Eastbound Elm) and the left (Beech).


Figure 1: Existing Intersection of Elm Street and Willow/Beech

Figure 2: Pedestrian (black dot) trying to cross Willow


2 Comments:

At October 3, 2007 at 7:31 AM , Blogger Derek said...

I ride my bike by this intersection every day and have had some of my closest calls there. I firmly believe that the folks coming from Beech, crossing elm, and continuing on Willow have a tendency to treat this as some sort of 4 way intersection, which it's not. They tend to take some odd paths as they cross this intersection. Some of them take a right off Beech and then a left onto Willow, but most seem to skirt straight across which creates issues for all traffic (auto, foot, bicycle).

 
At October 3, 2007 at 2:07 PM , Blogger Unknown said...

Passing along a comment of a friend who has lived at this intersection for many years:

"The worst offenders are the folks who roll through the (hard to see) stop sign as they turn right (East) from Beech onto Elm. This problem has been with us for a long time--my daughter was hit in the crosswalk there nearly 30 years ago. I have NEVER seen anyone stopped for a moving violation there. Part of the problem is that Cambridge and Somerville try to get the other town to own the street (when it comes to citizens asking to make the place safer). It took considerable citizen action to get the useless flashing orange light and the rather more useful cement dividers put in at the intersection -- and the stop sign that would be visible at least if the tree branch that obscures it were ever trimmed. (Not that people are likely to see the sign anyway because of the height at which it's placed.)"

 

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