Board of Aldermen 03-08-2022 Page 16
He’s available. Mr. Hudson would you care to join us?
Dan Hudson, City Engineer
Thanks Mr. Director. No, that’s correctly described. This is an existing problem that has been there for a while. It is
exasperated by the additional level of traffic. What you have at that location is a high number of U-turns for the reasons
Alderman Thibeault noted. To reverse direction, people have to use that U-turn and at the same time, some people are
trying to take a right turn on red. It’s not a great location sight distance wise because you are coming up the vertical hill
there. You are looking left, your left turn traffic beside you, you have a couple lanes going northbound on DW Highway,
and now as of late you have some added congestion because of Bu’s traffic. So it’s a condition that has existed. We
would have recommended that it be changed regardless, but it has become more recently more problematic because of
the additional congestion.
President Wilshire
Seven hands just went up! Alderman O’Brien.
Alderman O’Brien
Thank you Madam President. We heard this in Infrastructure and | don’t want to go deep into history, but you have to
remember right turn on red lights some of you don’t remember the 70’s. | vaguely do myself. Some of you weren’t born
during the 70’s, but the thing is we went through a real crisis where there wasn’t enough fuel and shows history. Looking
today, history repeats itself and fuel prices went up. But for a vehicle to sit at a red light in dead idle, there was great
concern. So there was federal change and they said “yes”. All States had you had to stop completely at a red light, no
turning at all. That’s why the green arrow was invented, but because of the fuel shortage and then they came out with the
right turn on red unless the municipality looked at it and then determined that it was hazardous to do so. We have now
come to that with this particular intersection. So therefore, that’s why it passed the Committee, but | just wanted to bring
the background information on why we do have the authority to limit the right turn on red. | mean prior to 1970, everybody
had to come to a complete stop.
Now as far as the Bu’s, | wish they had better signage. | don’t know, maybe somebody can talk to them but there is an
exit on the DW for heading northbound. So there really is not a need for the BU customer to go down back to Adventure
Way, and then to come up, and then to go through the light. Usually | try to avoid lights, although it is against the law to
go on somebodies property to avoid them. The thing is there is a way out, but unfortunately the public isn’t using this
which created this. So therefore, it went through Infrastructure, we approved it, and | hope that answers some of your
questions on why we have the authority to do so. Thank you.
Alderman Klee
Thank you Madam President. The truth is that | think what people have stated here the entrance into the Bu’s gas station
is what is backing up. It’s not the people leaving the gas station because they coming out of and I, too, like Alderwoman
Kelly has use it quite often.
The issue that | see is that they’re coming out of BU’s, doing a right turn on red, and then we have a U-turn as well. | know
in Concord they put up different kinds of lights saying you know “you can’t right turn on red when someone is doing a U-
turn”. They have these big giant signs.
| had a couple questions and perhaps Mr. Hudson can answer them. In the downtown area we have right turn on red, but
we have restrictions like off of Amherst Street onto Main Street during certain hours. Would that be something that would
allow for this but during certain times not to allow for it? | don’t think that this is going to affect the right turn on red. It’s
going to affect the Adventure Way, but | think maybe if we allowed it to happen during the really not busy times or
something much like we do even on Main Street. Would something like this help or is it just kind of a waste of time to do
it?
Dan Hudson, City Engineer
Sure. Thank you. | supposed that in the late hours of the evening if it’s not busy, then it wouldn’t be as needed. One
thing to note too is that lane that you can make a right turn from is a shared through right lane. So the only people that
are turning right on red are the first or second person in line if those people want to turn right versus go through. So a lot
of people are trapped behind the throughs during the red anyway.