Consultant recommends modified diet; crosswalk not warranted
Trying to calm resident fears and improve the safety of a stretch of road that has puzzled traffic and city officials for years, Rye has again revisited the plausibility of traffic calming measures near Osborn School.

With residents, whether right or wrong, protesting the current state of that portion of Boston Post Road (BPR) the Rye City Council began searching for answers. Peter Russillo, a consultant with John Collins Engineers P.C., presented preliminary traffic-calming options developed for the lone portion of BPR that wasn’t transformed into a road diet back in 2008.

That area now in question remained untouched since solutions seemed hard pressed due to the number of cars and the subsequent cueing of school traffic – the city even talked to the state about it. But at the urging of area residents, the Collins firm began a $10,000 preliminary study and survey, again looking at additional designs of the location last November.

Any work undertaken along the small stretch of roadway from Old Post Road to Oakland Beach Avenue was earmarked by the previous City Council in the city’s 2010 budget – $45,000 was left in the pot for improvements.

Russillo provided two possible alternatives to the city. His recommendation was to move forward with just a modified three-lane road diet – two lanes heading southbound toward Mamaroneck and one north. It would improve the turn radius and create an area of 6 feet off the sidewalk on the south side where there is currently only 2.5 feet. The width would be expanded to 9 feet all together including the sidewalk.

City Planner Christian Miller said the city looked at widening the sidewalk but was left with little wiggle room due to right-of-way constraints. Sonn Drive is actually wider than the Boston Post Road at that location.

The diet would cost $40,000; but doing that would create a left-turn pocket forcing the city to reprogram the traffic light at Oakland Beach Avenue, which would cost an additional $5,000. The other alternative would be to implement the diet along with the construction of a right-turn-only lane. The addition of that lane would cost $55,000.

Diets are often used as a traffic-calming measure to reduce the number of travel lanes on a road. The BPR diet, identified in a 2007 study, was soon thereafter implemented to reduce the road from four lanes to two since the road had a sub-standard width of roughly 36 feet, where 48 feet is the currently acceptable practice for a four-lane road. Russillo said after implementing it, the firm came back six months later to review its merit and found traffic speeds reduced by 4-5 mph.

“Our experience with the existing diet, [and] also other diets used in other towns you will see a drop in speed,” the consultant told in a Tuesday phone interview. “It seemed the most concern in this area is proximity to schools and safe crossing. A diet triples almost the distance from sidewalk to travel lane. That is an increase in safety.”

Other possible present-day options include the addition of a $165,000 traffic signal, a $15,000 variation of a speed hump that does not slow cars as significantly as a hump, or two raised medians on Sonn Drive at $15,000 a clip. The firm also recommends the necking down of Sonn from its current width of 40 feet to roughly half – estimated to cost about $15,000. If the city chooses to invest in more of these alternate options expenses could run as high as $345,000. “The bottom line is you can do different phases of this,” the consultant said. “One isn’t dependent on the other.”

In coming to its conclusion, the Collins firm evaluated the area during morning peak hours, 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and during afternoon peak hours, from 2 to 4 p.m. taking into account traffic record counts, state and historical data. And of concern, 85 percent of cars along the Osborn School area vehicles were found traveling at speeds of 40 mph during school times – more than double the legal limit for a school zone.

Nonetheless, the highly publicized intersection of Sonn Drive didn’t meet criteria to warrant a crosswalk – never reaching a 100-pedestrian threshold during any four-hour window. More than 180 residents, particularly school parents, petitioned the city late last year for a crosswalk and crossing guard. The crosswalk was discussed back in ’08 but the issue didn’t catch fire until recently. “They haven’t gotten close to the pedestrian requirements for a crosswalk,” Russillo told the council. “I wouldn’t call it unsafe, but it’s unnecessary. Children may still cross there but if you put a crosswalk you are encouraging it.”

And just 400 feet down the road is a crosswalk and a crossing guard at the Oakland Beach Avenue intersection, yet many resident refuse to cross there. Bob Zahm, an Osborn School parent, said people cross where they do purely out of convenience. But even with the implementation of this new diet, the city does not want people crossing from Sonn, according to traffic officials.

The Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Committee will review the plans at its Thursday, March 11 meeting; a joint committee recently formed by the City Council and the School Board will also review the proposals.