This tight intersection at Olive and Court Streets, with sightlines made for surreys not Saturns, has been the scene of many accidents. It’s about to get safer.
And it won’t cost the city a ducat thanks to some innovative thinking from Director of Traffic & Parking Mike Piscitelli. Piscitelli revealed the plan to the Downtown Wooster Square Management Team (DWSCMT) Tuesday night.
With eight recent accidents at the intersection — as well as another eight at Grand and Olive — Piscitelli came to the DWSCMT meeting back in November to consult. Part of the problem was the additional traffic, vehicular as well as pedestrian, coming along Olive due to the closing of the Grand Avenue at Olive intersection.
But the real culprit was that parkers were ignoring the no parking signs within 25 feet of Court on Olive, thereby severely limiting the view out onto Olive. Additionally, cars sometimes parked on Court, despite its being verboten. Finally, the wrought iron fences on the south corner might be beautiful, but it constituted yet another obstruction for drivers.
Result: drivers nudge, inch, and poke the front ends of their vehicles dangerously, often even blindly, out from Court before making their turning move, and accidents result. There is also not a lot of respect for the Yield to Pedestrians sign at the crosswalk spanning Olive.
Solution: The city maintains a kind of on-call traffic consultant — Earth Tech, Inc. — to whom Piscitelli wrote. The consultant’s suggestions: increase the no-park zone on Olive from 25 feet to 50 feet. Enforce it vigorously with new signage, including painted triangular signs in the pavement.
“These consultants study these things,” Piscitelli reported to a dozen management team participants at City Hall on Tuesday night. “And this works.”
Piscitelli said that in addition to pushing parked cars away from the intersection, he plans to address the danger to pedestrians, many of whom are not so fleet any more. He’s training some of his school crossing guards so they can be deployed, when not on school-centered duty, to come to Olive and Court and escort people across the intersection.
“The key is to do it at different times of the day,” he said, “with a kind of inconsistency that will help cumulatively calm traffic down.”
Currently Piscitelli’s school crossing guards work only at schools. He’s creating what he calls a “Safety Guard Program,” at no extra cost, just additional training and investment in human capital, as he put it.
Or, as he charmingly put it, “Using humans is easier.”
The traffic consultants found the intersection didn’t warrant a four-way stop sign or a new signal. The signal would have been too expensive anyway, said Piscitelli. He solicited management team members for suggestions for the busiest times when a safety guard might be needed.
“We’ve heard from the Wooster Square farmers’ market people,” he said, “that they would like the safety guard service at the intersection during the weekend markets.” Juggling the schedules of the school crossing guards, he said he hoped to deploy not only at Court and Olive but other pedestrian hot spots as well.
Opening Fair Street, and even Trolleys?
In yet another traffic tale to-be, Piscitelli said that he’s also asked the South Central Regional Council of Governments to study opening Fair Street between Union and Olive. That would give a direct connection for pedestrians from downtown to Wooster Square. Currently as soon as you cross State you must dogleg on Union up to Chapel or down to Water.
“It’s part of rebuilding the street grid in the whole area around the former Coliseum site,” he said.
Finally, another item in the beginning stages of study, Piscitelli said, is returning trolleys to downtown. As murmured whispers of “I love trolleys,” or even “I remember the trolleys” from several white-haired participants, the meeting ended.
These issues will be on the agenda of the next DWSCMT on March 18 at City Hall, as well at other venues to be announced.