DALTON, Mass. — The Traffic Commission wrote a letter to the Select Board urging for a traffic study to ensure safe traffic control during elections now that the polling station is at the Senior Center. 

 

The concern was raised by Traffic Commission Chair William Drosehn during its meeting last week. 

 

Now that the decision has been made, the commission needs to weigh in and look into how to make the roads safer during elections, he said.  

 

The Select Board voted to relocate the polling station from the Community Recreation Association to the Senior Center in August, going against the ad hoc committee's suggestion.

 

The ad hoc committee was made up of the police chief, the fire chief, the highway superintendent, and Town Clerk Heather Hunt.

 

Limited parking at the Senior Center may cause parking overflow onto side streets, which could create a safety issue by blocking emergency personnel from accessing the area, Police Chief Deanna Strout said during the August meeting. 

 

The roads are also not designed to handle the amount of traffic elections would bring, the Traffic Commission said during its meeting last week. 

 

"The streets are too narrow for the amount of traffic we're going to see," commissioner Al Nadeu said. 

 

Nadeu recommended that they write a letter to request the Select Board reverse this decision. This was shot down when it was noted that it is unlikely the board's minds will be changed and that the safety concerns need to be addressed before the next election. 

 

The commission wants to look at the area's traffic patterns. One of the major concerns is the blind spots on Glennon Avenue, including the hill "coming over the top" and the curb coming around the post office. People are going to turn into or come out of Glennon Avenue, Drosehn said. 

 

The commission needs to consider the best place to put signage, and the police details to make the area safe for residents. 

 

To inform these decisions the town should pay for an engineering company to conduct a traffic study, Drosehn said. 

 

"My thought being that the Finance Committee knows there's enough money in the engineering budget to maybe have an engineer, a traffic engineer of some kind, come in here and give us some healthy direction as to where to place signs and where to place traffic safety," Drosehn said.

 

"... We have money in the engineering budgets now it's not like we are broke … We also have engineering money in the stabilization account as well."

 

The town also has a special town meeting coming up so this could be added to the warrant, he said. 

 

For projects like this the town generally does not have to go out to bid and it's unlikely a traffic study would cost much, maybe $5,000, Drosehn said.

 

"If we can avoid one accident by doing it, I'm gonna be head over heels with that," he said. 

 

Drosehn is also the chair of the Finance Committee.