Lowell Street traffic solutions

Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy presented her plan to improve traffic on Lowell Street to the Traffic Commission this past Thursday, Nov. 20.

In response to neighborhood meetings where residents expressed their fears about speeding and traffic safety on Lowell Street, McCarthy worked with City Engineer Robert Winn to propose a number of traffic calming and safety changes to the street. These changes include four new all-way stops, rumble strips between lanes at Pine Street and at Derby Street, repainted and newly painted crosswalks using weather-resistant thermoplastic paint, and one-way speed humps.

Ward 8 Councilor Cathyann Harris told the commission McCarthy’s proposal was the “most comprehensive plan to date” in her six years of advocating for it, and presented a neighborhood petition that had achieved 135 signatures in favor of the plan, which she said was higher than the number of people who lived on the street.

The Traffic Commission voted to have Traffic Engineer J. Michael Garvin study McCarthy’s suggestions and compile the data it would need to make a determination about them. The commission hasn’t made any concrete decision about the proposals yet, although some commission members suggested that any speedbumps should span the whole street to make plowing simpler and prevent cars from driving in the other lane to avoid them.

McCarthy presented the plan as the “South Side Safety Plan,” additionally requesting that the commission work to improve traffic across the South Side. She specifically asked the Police Department to provide a public map of compiled South Side crash data from the last five years and update it annually to help direct traffic enforcement in the neighborhood — suggesting that they eventually create such a map for every neighborhood of the city.