The new sign at the souther intersection of Winter Street and Old Winter Street.
Old Winter Street northbound is now closed to traffic on weekdays from 4–7 p.m. after the Board of Selectmen acceded to requests from residents concerned about backed-up rush hour traffic.
Several homeowners on the road appeared at the September 25 selectmen’s meeting to support the recommendation of the Roadway and Traffic Committee to put the restriction in place on a six-month trial basis. But board members were reluctant to overturn the decision of their predecessors, who voted in 2015 not to restrict access to the road.
“If nothing has changed and we’re getting the same request again, it’s almost akin to judge-shopping or forum-shopping,” Selectman James Craig said when the board first heard the renewed request in June.
Nonetheless, the board agreed in September to a one-month delay on a decision on the new request while the town gathered new data on late-afternoon traffic volume on Old Winter Street, which commuters coming from Waltham sometimes use to “jump the queue” of cars stopped on Winter Street as it approaches Trapelo Road.
Traffic engineer John Vancor monitored traffic at the intersection and reported queues of anywhere from four to 35 cars backed up on Old Winter Street. Chief of Police Kevin Kennedy said the heaviest traffic on Old Winter Street northbound occurred on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, with a high of 174 cars from 5–6 p.m. on October 3 (the same afternoon as the 35-car queue was seen).
“When you have that significant a backup with the landscape of the road, it’s going to make it difficult for emergency vehicles to go down the road,” Kennedy said.
There are “significant impediments” to widening Old Winter Street, said Chris Bibbo, superintendent of the Department of Public Works. “As a whole, it would be very difficult.”
“Widening it would really change the character of that road for the sake of commuter traffic,” observed Town Administrator Tim Higgins.
Vancor was also asked to look at similar situations in town, such as the workaround from Peirce Hill Road to Towne Road to Lincoln Road, or westbound traffic heading up Trapelo Road toward the library using Old Lexington Road a sa shortcut to Bedford Road. As to the first example, “we didn’t consider it to be analogous,” Vancor said. The Old Lexington Road maneuver “is actually providing a traffic efficiency overall, or a transportation link,” since more than half the cars turn right onto Bedford Road northbound rather than turning left to Five Corners as a way of cutting the line on Trapeolo Road, he added.
But former Selectmen Peter Braun objected to the idea of restricting access even on a trial basis, noting that when he was on the board, “the town agreed in a general sense that we shouldn’t be doing this except under extraordinary circumstances… this is a public road, and I just find it really difficult to say we’re going to shut it off for some people.”
Commuter traffic has increased noticeably all over town in the past few years, Braun noted. “If you squeeze the balloon one place, you end up with a problem someplace else,” such as Winter Street itself, he added.
Braun also expressed concern about drawing more attention from Waltham and state officials to traffic bottlenecks near the Lincoln/Waltham line. Waltham has sought to have Lincoln put a police officer or traffic light at the intersection of Old County and Trapelo Roads, thus far without success, he said. Also, Old County Road (formerly a Middlesex County road) is classified as a state road running from Route 2 south across Trapelo Road and Winter Street, with the state retaining a right of way on the footpath portion to what is now Old Conant Road all the way to Conant Road. The state could theoretically take another look at the status of that road, or the one-way portion of Winter Street.
“I’m really concerned about the optics of this. Old County Road to me is a third rail,” Braun said.
“Inconvenience is not the main reason to do this — there’s a lot of traffic everywhere,” Selectman James Craig said. “But when it crosses the line from inconvenience to a legitimate matter of public safety, we’re obligated to examine this… I would be in favor of the six-month trial with the understanding that this is not the end of the discussion, but merely another step in the process and evaluating the impact this has on Winter Street and other neighborhoods.”
Between now and April, Vancor and Lincoln police will monitor traffic in Winter Street/Old Winter Street area and report their findings at a public hearing.