Description
o City of Fitchburg Officials and Police Dept.: The problem of speeding cars continues on Connors Street, which is one of the city's "short cuts," despite the radar cart being placed on my street for 1 month in October. I would appreciate some effort to enforce traffic law on my street as this represents a safety issue for residents/children on my street. Thank you.
also asked...
Q. Issue:
A. Speeding Traffic on Connors Street
A. Speeding Traffic on Connors Street
Q. Description
A. o City of Fitchburg Officials and Police Dept.: The problem of speeding cars continues on Connors Street, which is one of the city's "short cuts," despite the radar cart being placed on my street for 1 month in October. I would appreciate some effort to enforce traffic law on my street as this represents a safety issue for residents/children on my street. Thank you.
A. o City of Fitchburg Officials and Police Dept.: The problem of speeding cars continues on Connors Street, which is one of the city's "short cuts," despite the radar cart being placed on my street for 1 month in October. I would appreciate some effort to enforce traffic law on my street as this represents a safety issue for residents/children on my street. Thank you.
31 Comments
J Lofton (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
J Lofton (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
Trevor Bonilla (Verified Official)
TL (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
Nathan Larose (Registered User)
Nathan Larose (Registered User)
TL (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
Chief of Police (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
J Lofton (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
Well as the weather gets nicer and the temps go up, so do the speeds of vehicles barrelling down Connors Street. Yesterday the rush hour was ridiculous. Since the radar cart was placed on Patton Street, I have seen only one cruiser. Half of the drivers don't even pay attention to the radar cart. I have yet to even see a car pulled over on Patton Street or Connors Street since the radar cart was on either street. The only way anyone cares is if there is enforcement. This is a residential zone with closely spaced houses and kids on the street. This is clearly a city-wide problem. But the unique route of Rt.2-Abbott Ave./Patton St./Connors St. presents a particularly significant problem as a highway to city and city to highway shortcut with no way to control the speed of cars.
TL (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
Just to continue the discussion here, last week a vehicle drove off of the road and almost into a house less than half-a-mile from Connors Street. This is an example of exactly what I’m afraid will occur on Connors Street. There’s a good chance that if the house on Canton Street hadn’t been located above a wall, the car would have ended up driving into that house. God help anyone else who might be sitting in a home on street level. There would be nothing to stop a vehicle from impacting such a home or killing someone going out to a mailbox.
This vehicle was traveling uphill and still had so much momentum that it drove over the curb on the opposite side of the street, over a lawn, across a driveway, up and over a stone wall and banking, taking out the wrought iron railings on the house’s front brick steps. Pieces of the car took out a wooden fence on the other side of the yard. How much speed is required to cause such multiple impacts? The answer is “too much.”
Given that this incident occurred a short distance from Connors Street, I consider this to be a neighborhood incident and something that I have been concerned about happening for a long time. Cars are racing down back roads that function as shortcuts in the city. Given its proximity and direction, the Canton Street incident is part of the Abbott Ave./Patton St./Connors St. problem and a prime example of what is happening citywide.
Though I’m well aware that speeding is a serious problem all over the state and throughout the country today, we have to start dealing with it somewhere, sometime and that somewhere has to be where we live - now.
TL (Registered User)
TL (Registered User)
TL (Registered User)
The problem of speeding cars continues on Connors Street and other city streets. The radar cart was recently placed on Patton Street. It is a useless piece of equipment unless backed up by actual enforcement (and that doesn't mean placing a cruiser in the area for an hour or two). The smart thing to do would be to leave the cart on Patton Street and THEN place a cruiser on upper Connors Street, about half way, to enforce the speed limit on cars coming up the hill to the end of the street.
There HAVE to be other ways to utilize resources to try to reduce the pervasiveness of this problem.
halosmom (Registered User)
TL (Registered User)
Chief of Police (Registered User)
TL (Registered User)
Chief Martineau,
I have taken time to consider your points.
No citizen could have more respect for the call to serve than I have, the nephew of a 33-year veteran of the Fitchburg Police Department – so much respect as to briefly consider following in his footsteps. That consideration was deterred due to an awareness of what I believed at the time (and continue to believe today) to be profound conflicts of interest. I believe that the political-economic system can impose limits on what might be achievable and, more importantly, needed by police action and this serious issue of rampant violations of traffic law endangering residents’ safety is one of them. The truest measure of compliance with any law is the compliance rate in the absence of police. What I have learned from my family is that my duty as a citizen is as important as your duty as a police officer.
Your response to my post concerns me greatly for many reasons. First, it does not address my concerns regarding MY street. A radar cart without follow up enforcement is useless. Police presence on my street for 1 or 2 hours once or twice a year does nothing to curb the serious violations taking place. I have witnessed a cruiser on Abbott Avenue more rarely than occasionally. That certainly constitutes an occasional police presence “in my neighborhood” as you have said. However, why is Connors Street not given any attention? My street is a key portion of a shortcut in the city for those drivers avoiding South Street and Route 12 entirely. From Route 2 to Patton Street to Connors Street, this shortcut is unpatrolled. There are factors of which I am sure you are aware that make this a unique entry point accessing the city directly from Route 2 without supervision. I have otherwise witnessed very little police presence in my neighborhood.
My other concerns with your response are in regard to your statistics. First, how many stops have actually been conducted “in my neighborhood” in the last year? More importantly, since I am the concerned citizen reporting this issue, how many stops have been conducted on MY street in the last year? You mention that there have been 377 stops since I reported the issue almost one year ago. If that is an accurate number of stops in the city during one year, it represents an average of about ONE stop per day. Is that correct? I am not certain what is more alarming, that there have only been 377 stops during the year or that 377 stops is considered adequate to maintain public safety in a city of 40,000 people and thousands more cars than that. How does the total of 377 stops per year compare with the number of driver-miles PER DAY or the number of driver-hours PER DAY? Per year?
Correcting bad behavior is a messy job and it’s going to take a lot more than 377 stops per year to make a difference. If slightly less than half of those stops occurred during rush hours, that represents an average of one stop every other day. I am not privy to what “substantial resources” means in terms of what has been devoted to this problem, nor in the context of the city’s budget. However, as a driver and resident taxpayer in this city, I can confidently say that whatever it means, it is not enough. I have been passed on the left, tailgated, run off of the road multiple times, had items thrown at me by moving cars and had cars failing to yield, failing to stop, and failing to keep to the right. Those incidents continue to occur every day and become even more flagrant at night.
I feel that concerned citizens and the police department need to be on the same page here. To the extent of being a positive force in this city, it is my duty to report what is happening. True acknowledgement of the scope and severity of the problem is imperative. Only then can current measures be evaluated accurately and appropriate changes made to effectively deal with this problem because right now, it isn’t working. The best example of the ineffectiveness of the current approach is the incident of a car almost launching into a house on Canton Street. That, if nothing else, should be a wake up call. If we are not in agreement in terms of what is really happening and why, problems will not be solved. It may serve to look at the city of Cambridge to see what it has done to deal with rampant speeding and traffic volume in residential neighborhoods as a result of neighborhood streets being used as shortcuts during rush hour. Their experience appears to parallel what we are experiencing on some Fitchburg streets, especially Patton and Connors streets, which are tucked between South St. and Route 12.
I will be in contact with Sgt Sullivan soon.
TL (Registered User)
To all interested in this issue:
I'd like to note that a cruiser was finally positioned on Connors Street on February 1st in the afternoon. I was encouraged when I saw the traffic officer stopping vehicles (about 3 vehicles during the 1 - 2 hours he was here). I also feared for the officer's safety as he was doing his job, since drivers were speeding as they approached him. I am certain he must have been a bit surprised to see the number of vehicles traveling on a residential/neighborhood street and at the speeds they were traveling.
I have not seen another cruiser on Connors Street stopping vehicles since that day. Now that Spring is coming, vehicle speeds will be increasing as a consequence of roads unimpeded by snow. I hope to see future instances of cruisers stopping speeding vehicles on my street - or even surrounding streets.
In terms of this problem in general, Fitchburg should consider the actions of two other Commonwealth cities, Cambridge and Worcester. Cambridge has instituted a ban on nonresident traffic traveling through neighborhoods being utilized a shortcuts during the rush hours. It may seem drastic, but residents' safety is at stake and this is an answer to drivers who have no regard for public safety. These drivers are not simply driving 5 MPH over the limit. They are traveling 15 or 20 MPH over the limit and pose a risk to people even when residents are in their homes. The other major city attacking this problem is Worcester. See the attached picture. The city is calling for a halt to city-wide speeding. The city of Fitchburg should be looking to these examples as models of action. Plans should be put into place to appropriate the funds necessary to curb this dangerous trend.
TL (Registered User)
Tom Lomaglio Jr. (Registered User)
Fitchburg Resident (Registered User)
TL (Registered User)
關閉 Trevor Bonilla (Verified Official)
TL (Registered User)