Public Participation

Transcript (~15 min @ 0:53)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 0:58 Speaker 2: Our meeting this evening, as with all of our meetings, will be recorded and it will be rebroadcast on Melrose Cable Television in accordance with the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law.

▶ 1:07 Peter D. Mortimer: Mr. President, I make a motion to open the floor for public participation. Second. Second.

▶ 1:12 Speaker 2: Alderman Mortimer moves to commence public participation. Motion is seconded by Alderman Forbes on the motion. All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. This is the portion of our meeting where any member of the public can advance to the table in the middle of the room, state their name and address, and they can speak on any issue that is on our agenda for the evening. Is there anybody who wishes to speak? Please come forward.

▶ 1:39 Speaker 3: Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for giving the opportunity to present some thoughts. My name is Gabrielle Watson. I'm from the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee. I'm the chair of the committee. to read portions of a letter that we've sent already to the older people in regards to the ordinance around the speed limit so I'm only going to read a portion of it because it's somewhat long but so the for us the topic is particularly timely as we have been the home to two fatal traffic collisions in the past month the Melrose pedestrian bicycle Advisory Committee is strongly supportive of the measure that would improve safety and accessibility of our streets we encourage the Board of Aldermen to take advantage of this opportunity by adopting the 25 mile an hour speed limit on all applicable roads in Melrose that currently have a limit above 25 miles an hour this would be consistent with actions taken by many other municipalities in the Commonwealth including the city of Boston which promotes this change as part of its vision zero initiative a goal of zero traffic fatalities however we feel it's important to emphasize that changes to the speed limit should be considered as part of a multi-faceted effort to improve road safety not done as an isolated measure there is research to suggest that the number posted on a on a speed limit sign has little impact on driver behavior. In contrast, queues such as lane width and visibility distance have much greater effect. This observation has led to better ideas and guidelines for traffic calming as described in the official publications of organizations such as the National Association of City Transportation Officials, NACTO. so with this broader road safety view in mind we encourage the Board of Aldermen to continue their support for the work in progress related to the establishment of complete streets policy and its associated work working group an annual review process the mechanisms provide an excellent vehicle for identifying strategic strategic priority streets for additional traffic calming infrastructure and these changes can be introduced incrementally as the city does routine maintenance annual lane striping and roadway repairs thank

▶ 4:26 Speaker 2: you very much for your consideration thank you is there anybody else who wish

▶ 4:39 Ryan Williams: to speak this evening please come forward sir my name is Ryan Williams I moved to Melrose from Chicago about three weeks ago 88 Malvern which is just north of Malvern in Lebanon I have to say that moving to Melrose was kind of a happy accident for me I wasn't looking for a community I wasn't specifically looking for Melrose as I've come to understand a lot of people have been in the very recent past but I found it by accident and it's pretty close to an ideal community from my perspective I have two small children it's very walkable it's close to public transportation it's got a lot of parks around every single neighborhood there's a good supply of shops downtown the only thing that has really been the only thing that the only thing that I don't like about Melrose is the way that people cut through on certain streets during rush-hour traffic especially by and large I think that people are being pretty conservative and pretty friendly in the way that they drive but at certain times of day it definitely breaks down and the way that it breaks down happens to impact people that live in the thickly settled neighborhoods like where I live a little bit more than it does on major streets like Lebanon or um Linfels Parkway a lot of people use the street that I live on to avoid the stoplight at Grove and Lebanon and because it's on an incline people can build up quite a head of steam I've got a two-year-old who loves to run and she loves to run out to the sidewalk and every time I see a car coming from either direction I have to ask myself if this is going to be the time that somebody gets up too much speed and is distracted or is looking down at their phone and and you know it has an accident with one of my kids I myself have been driving 25 since I learned about the new initiative regardless of what street I'm on sometimes people take it well sometimes they don't but it's really opened up my eyes to how easy it is to drive 25 and what little impact it has on when I arrive at my destination I track every mile that I drive with Google Maps and it never puts more than a minute or two even when I'm driving all the way from the north to the south end of town but as the pedestrian and cyclist Advisory committee chair just told you the reduction in speed of even 30 to 25 miles an hour is significant national highway authorities say that if you reduce speed from 40 miles an hour to 30 miles an hour you get a pedestrian fatality rate that is down from 50% to 44% if you lower it from 30 miles an hour down to 25 miles an hour the rate drops to 5% there's just a magic number in 25 miles an hour I heard about the traffic deaths that happened here in October I know that one of the individuals was walking in the street and that's a shame but if the person had been driving on a street that was designed to force him or her into obeying a slower speed limit I think there's a solid chance that that individual would still be alive and I would hate for it to happen to anybody that I know or that many of you know so I very strongly support the 25 mile an hour speed limit I also think it should be the first step in a larger more comprehensive transportation plan to introduce traffic calming I think that it should be designed strategically based on behavior patterns where people cut through to avoid lights where people speed to get in and around Melrose having driven during rush hour pretty much all over the place to drop my kids off at daycare and take my wife to the train just off the top of my head I can name Lebanon as probably the prime example of a street that needs to be reduced to 25 and you probably also need consider putting in some one-way streets to try and dissuade people from using it as a right angle cut through to get to the other streets that's all I'd say

▶ 8:27 Speaker 2: thank you sir thank you thank you anybody else who wants we'd like to speak

▶ 8:39 Speaker 4: this evening good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Alice Golub I have been a resident of Melrose for 12 and a half years I am recently retired and I have taken up a retirement career of driving for uber so I drive a lot in Melrose I am familiar now with streets that I never knew existed but I have the honor and the privilege on living at the intersection from hell which is Howard Elm and Clifford streets and I see you all nodding so you're all familiar with that intersection and there have been Numerous times where I have called the mayor, we're all on a first-name basis, the police chief, Sergeant Gock, and I welcome any of you to come and sit on my front porch for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. What happens is the traffic comes across Franklin, down Green, then makes a turn, becomes Howard. There's an island there. They can go right or they can go left. Each way there is a yield sign, not a stop sign. They can come from Green, coming from Linfels Parkway. There is a stop sign. I live at 15. The stop sign is basically in front of, I think, Marcos House's number 9. I would venture to guess that 58% of the cars do a rolling stop, 20% do a full stop, and the 78.

▶ 10:13 Speaker 4: so the other 22% don't bother to stop at all the how cars that come whipping down green and around on to Howard then have three options they can continue on Howard they can make a sharp right onto Elm Street or they can make a soft right on to Clifford Street which they dart across and do very often and of course on Elm Street we have an island and it's two-way traffic around each the island so cars aren't quite sure where they're going. If they're coming from the Saugus line on Howard, you can make the left turn on Elm on either side of the island. If they're coming from Howard, they can do the same thing. So it is truly an intersection from hell. We have all the young people walking to and from Horace Mann. We have people walking to the early childhood. We have teenagers walking to the middle school and to the high school. We have commuters walking to the bus and to the Highlands train station. There's constant, constant foot traffic, bike traffic, car traffic, truck traffic, you name it. The 25-mile-an-hour can't come soon enough. Last week, we did have a meeting of the pedestrian bike committee. I believe it was last week. And the next day, there was increased patrolling on Howard Street. It was wonderful. We were all posting on the Facebook page. We were very excited. That lasted a few days. I walk that loop very often, and I noticed on the weekend where they have the flashing speed sign, people were just zipping right along. And I understand that the police officers, it's impossible to monitor traffic 24-7, but if we change the traffic pattern, if there's calming effect, some raised intersections where people will have to stop it will really improve the safety of the entire community of Melrose and one other fix that I really think would work and I did mention it at the meeting last week is Clifford Street if it were one way coming out from Nelson then the cars at least couldn't zoom across Howard and down onto Clifford coming out of Clifford they would have to have a full hard stop at at elm street it would be impossible to continue because you have to either go right or left so that would at least alleviate that rocket of cars zooming across so i appreciate all your time and your effort and if you ever want to come sit on the front porch i'll serve you a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and you can sit and watch the traffic and i think you would be really shocked and disappointed by what you see thank you thank you thank you anyone else hello thanks for the

▶ 13:06 Speaker 5: opportunity to speak my name is Andy Monat I live up in Melrose Highlands on West Hill Ave been a Melrose resident for three years now I'd like to speak strongly in favor of the 25 mile an hour speed limit and echo everything that the previous speakers have said I take I'd like to take a moment to remember the two people who are killed by traffic violence in the last month or so you know these are these are people who are particularly vulnerable who we need to do better to try to protect the the 25 mile an hour speed limit is a great change but as they've said it's not enough one thing I'd like to put in your minds is lean widths I know you know on residential streets maybe it's one lane no big deal a 12-foot wide lane is a highway lane and when you're in one of those you feel like driving really fast when you're pretty much nothing in a city should be wider than 10 feet ever I just like 10 put 10 not 12 in your minds there's all of the studies show that those don't slow down on the overall amount of throughput you get on a street hate doing ten-foot lanes but they do decrease the the maximum speeds which is the dangerous part part of people's driving as they said there's lots of dangerous intersections and corridors and Melrose for instance I would be perfectly happy taking the occasional bike ride going on the part of Main Street right through downtown Melrose that's totally fine right it's narrow people don't go very fast you know no one's gonna pass you doing 45 as they're driving and you're on a bicycle but as soon as you get south of there you come to you hit the gas station and it's much wider and suddenly it's just you know people people just see the open road and put the pedal down and you know I drive to I drove over here it absolutely happens to you when like you take the cues from the way the road is designed and you just find yourself driving whatever whatever is the speed that it seems to indicate right remember my mother telling me she was one time and on a road trip in South Dakota and she looked down and she was doing 90 miles an hour and she's not a 90 mile an hour driver but you know an open highway nothing around right so you hit you you pass through let's say you pass through Highlands where you know they recently did some narrowing and it feels very constricted and you're like oh no I need to be I need to be on my guard I need to slow down which is exactly what we need to have people feeling and the one last thing I want to touch on is bicycling facilities if you I'm sure some of you have children so imagine you have a ten-year-old child or grandchild if some bicycling facility like you know on a street is not something you would feel safe letting your ten-year-old ride on then it's not safe enough there I can I'd be happy to talk at great length about all of this stuff but that can wait for another time thank you very

▶ 16:06 Speaker 1: much thank you sir thank you did he sign the sheet motion to close public

▶ 16:08 Peter D. Mortimer: participation, Mr. President? Second. Alderman Mortimer moves that we conclude