Cumberland drivers in for a bumpier ride

Town announces program to institute ‘traffic calming’ measures next month

CUMBERLAND – The town is taking a new approach to reduce speeding on local residential roads.

Acting on legislation filed by Mayor Jeffrey J. Mutter, the Town Council has agreed to initiate a pilot neighborhood traffic calming program next month on Sonny Drive, Rawson Road, Bear Hill Road and Scott Road to address speeding and cutthrough traffic concerns.

As part of the program, which is being supported by Police Chief John R. Desmarais, the town will implement speed cushions, street lining and speed radar trailers. The program is mirrored after the one being used in Attleboro, which has installed speed cushions on Main Street and other locations.

Speed cushions are either speed humps or speed tables that include wheel cutouts to allow large vehicles to pass unaffected, while reducing passenger car speeds. The humps are intended to let vehicles operating at intended speed (15 mph) to pass over them with little or no discomfort to the driver of vehicles.

In Cumberland, the temporary speed cushions will initially be placed on Rawson Road and Sonny Drive for one month in October.

In addition, Bear Hill Road will be marked with a yellow center line to improve vehicle positioning and speed, while speed feedback signs will be placed on Scott Road and at other targeted locations.

“These are areas that since January we’ve had multiple requests for assistance and we really wanted to make sure that we did something before the end of the calendar year,”

said 0utter. “:ith winter approaching we knew that time was getting short.

The initial plan is for the 3olice epartment to collect traffic data for a two weeks prior to implementing the program and then for two weeks after the temporary

program ends to see if it is working.

“The idea is to collect some data before the installation of any device and then test its effectiveness and determine if we should do something more permanent, he added.

The total cost of the speed humps is , . 2ther costs associated with the pilot program have yet to be deter

mined, but will be budgeted in the ) 0 budget.

“I think it’s a good first step, says istrict 3 &ouncilwoman /isa A. Beaulieu. “There’s a lot of traffic coming into this community that needs to be addressed and I think this will be a good to start collecting some data on what is real and what is reported. I don’t think a yellow line on Bear ill 5oad is

going to solve all of the problems on that road, but you have to start somewhere.

Beaulieu believes the town should consider engaging a traffic engineer to look at Bear ill 5oad, which she says has a number of problems. “It’s too narrow. It’s too wide. And it’s not straight she said. “It’s got everything working against it.

“2ne of the roads target

ed in this program, 5awson 5oad, is in my district, and is a significant source of speeding complaints, said &ouncilman 6cott 5. 6chmitt. “It’s also a shortcut into 0assachusetts.

“6peeding on town roads was the number one complaint I heard during my campaign, said At /arge &ouncilman 0ichael /. .inch. “This is not a magic bullet,

but it’s a start.

In a related matter, the Town &ouncil in response to complaints from neighbors about cut-through traffic and speeding during commuter hours agreed to place stop signs on 9alley 6treet a the intersection with Timberwolf rive, as well as on Timberwolf rive in both directions at its intersection with 9alley 6treet.