Right on Red or NOT

Check out these new signs at the intersection of Water St. and Laurel St. in Fitchburg.

These new signs appeared about a month ago. Strange though because this is what's in the city code for Right on Red.

§ 169-75. Right turn during red signal prohibited. [Added 6-3-1980]

No driver of a vehicle facing a steady red indication in a traffic control signal shall make a right turn against such red or stop indication at the following intersections when a sign is erected at such intersections prohibiting such right turn:

Name of Street	Direction of Travel	Prohibited Right Turn on Red Signal Onto
Bemis Road	West	Water Street
Boyle Court	East	Water Street
Fifth Street	West	Water Street
Kimball Street	East	Laurel Street
Main Street	North	Day Street
Old South Street	West	South Street
Water Street	North	Bemis Road
Water Street	South	Wanoosnoc Road

Does anyone know what's actually going on here?

Could it be that:

• these were added to the city code without going through the normal, safety committee, council approval, mayoral approval, publish ordinance in paper of record process?
• they're bogus?
• that the DPW is intentionally spending down their budget to avoid future cuts?
• that this is part of some new revenue raising scheme? (possibly tied to plans to increase the police traffic division from 2 to 5 officers)
• the cameras at the intersections are being used to evaluate traffic and come up with changes to improve traffic flow?

That last bullet might sound like a good use for those cameras, but if this is what came up with then they aren't doing a very good job of coming up with fixes. Note that the car below the sign in the last photo is stopped. That means they turned left from Laurel Street onto Water Street despite not having any place to go on the other side of the intersection, which is a traffic violation. The traffic northbound on Water Street is now unable to turn right over the bridge since the intersection is blocked.

Bottom line is that none of the suggested possibilities are appropriate. Comments anyone?

UPDATE 3/12/2007
After the Public Safety Committee meeting on 3/5 one of the councilors asked the traffic division officers about the no right on red signs. Turns out Fitchburg did not put the signs up. A contractor for MassHwy put them up while performing other work at the intersection. Fitchburg police have asked MassHwy about the signs but they had not responded yet. Fitchburg officers have been instructed NOT to write tickets for right on red at this intersection.

Fitchburg website should be updated

An S&E article in December referenced a report by Common Cause that discussed the documentation available on local municipal websites.

You can navigate information about the report at Open Government by clicking on the "Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government" link.

Fitchburg as noted in the "All Municipalities" table fails to publish it's budget and the minutes of the city council meetings. It's actually a little worse than that because they also frequently fail to get council meeting agendas published in a timely manner, sometimes publishing the agenda after the meeting or not at all.

In anycase, the reason I bring this up is because earlier this year the council approved the following petition

83-06 Councillor Dean A. Tran and Councillor Ted E. DeSalvatore, to implement the necessary technologies to have all forms, applications, instructions, directions, payment methods and public communications from all depts. in City Hall to be on-line.

and sent it to the Mayor's office.

Now according to the city code

Sec. 55. Approval and veto by mayor of orders, etc.
Every order, ordinance, resolution and vote relative to the affairs of the city, adopted or passed by the city council, shall be presented to the mayor for his approval. If he approves it he shall sign it; if he disapproves it he shall return it, with his written objections, to the city council, which shall enter the objections at large on its records, and again consider it. If the city council, notwithstanding such disapproval of the mayor, shall again pass such order, ordinance, resolution or vote by a two-thirds vote of all its members, it shall then be in force, but such vote shall not be taken for seven days after its return to the city council. Every such order, ordinance, resolution and vote shall be in force if not returned by the mayor within ten days after it has been presented to him. This section shall not apply to budgets submitted under section thirty-two of chapter forty-four or to appropriations by a city council under section thirty-three of said chapter. (1915, 267, II, Sec. 10.)

I don't recall seeing anything about the petition being returned to the council, so unless I'm wrong the order passed. Based on the article, as well as recent visits to the Fitchburg website it seems the Mayor has yet to implement it.

I think it's high time for that to change.

Manning Street Stop Sign

In the S&E article Leominster looks to slow down traffic on Manning Ave.

Leominster officials consider placing a stop sign on Manning Ave at the intersection with Mechanic Street as, "the first step in addressing speeding traffic".

Helloooo, you don't use stop signs to control speed.

From the article,

Mazzarella said the law requires people to stop, even though there isn't a sign.

"If you reach an intersection and there is a road in front of you, you have to stop," he said.

Wrong, quoting from Chapter 4 Rules of the Road in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Driver's Manual,

Intersections Not Controlled by Signs or Signals
If you come to an uncontrolled intersection, slow
down, look left and right for oncoming traffic,
and proceed if the way is clear. However,

• You must yield the right-of-way to any vehicle that has entered the intersection from your right or is approaching from your right.
• Look for any traffic approaching from the left. Even though you may have the legal right-of-way, make sure that the other driver is yielding to you before you proceed.

Also quoting the article,

Mechanic Street is very busy, and every motorist who turned onto it from Manning Avenue -- during a span of a few minutes Thursday afternoon -- all stopped.

Please understand, that's the way it supposed to (and does) work. Drivers on Manning Avenue, approaching the intersection, evaluate the situation. They see that they'll be crossing a sidewalk to turn onto Mechanic Street, they note the large building on the right which limits the ability to see pedestrians and vehicles approaching on Mechanic Street and they slow to an approapriate speed and or stop as needed before proceeding.

Based on the content of the article DPW director Patrick LaPointe and Mayor Mazzarella are wrong. They've given no legitimate reason to put up a stop sign at this location. Clearly they don't get it, maybe they should leave traffic engineering to - oh traffic engineers.

Unless the police department can show a history of collisions at Manning Avenue and Mechanic Street that are of a type that can be reduced by forcing traffic on Manning Avenue to stop the Leominster city council should reject this petition.

On a different note from the same article,

Ward 5 City Councilor Richard Marchand called LaPointe's petition "a great idea."

"Manning Avenue has become a cut through for the downtown traffic," he said, referring to drivers who use the street to avoid Monument Square.

Councilor Marchand is wrong on the first count and right on the second. Manning Avenue has become a cut through for drivers to avoid the delays caused by poor planning and engineering of the intersections around monument square.

However it makes more sense to fix the problems on the primary roads in the downtown area instead of treating the symptoms on the alternate routes with inappropriate signs.