The Case of the Missing Street

by Glenn C. Koenig, Webmaster at Town Wide Mall
(Note: This Story has been updated as of 5 February 2025)

Maynard, MA - Drivers heading in either direction on Concord Street may be wondering why the stop signs haven't been replaced with a new traffic signal by now.  The signals were supposed to be installed back in November.
And, by the way, what happened to Acton Street?  In a single week, the pavement was torn up, a fence added, grass planted, and a blinking stop sign installed.

Drivers heading south on Acton Street, from the residential area to the north, now face a stop sign and Do Not Enter signs when they reach Concord Street, as shown in the photo above.  The direct route to continue down Acton Street into downtown Maynard is now permanently blocked.
Now, their choices are either to turn left and encounter the difficult intersection with Haynes Street before taking a sharp right to continue south, down past Cumberland Farms, or turn right on Concord Street go down to either Maple or Brooks streets, and head into town that way instead.

(Note: I'll cover the lack of traffic signals, first, then continue with the Acton Street situation after.)

Back in November, I contacted Justin DeMarco, Director of Public Works here in Maynard, to ask him why the signals hadn't been installed yet.  His answer at the time was, "The delay is based on procurement delay from the steel commodity market."  The steel he's referring to is needed to fabricate the mast and arm that support the signals overhead.  His prediction at the time was "some time this winter."

A week ago, I contacted the contractor, I. W. Harding, for details.  Their representatives told me that the "mast and arm" assembly is an out-of-the-ordinary steel fabrication job; only two or three manufacturers make them these days. Because of a continuing backlog, it's typical for it to take 9 months or longer for delivery, after an order is placed.  When I asked for a time frame, they replied, "Some time in February is the tentative delivery date."  Meanwhile, the foundation for the mast, along with the flange, the bolts and the underground wiring, just sits there, waiting, while being covered with a dusting of snow.

Background #1

Question: Why do we need a mast and arm for this intersection?  Answer: Traditionally, traffic signals have either been mounted directly on posts or suspended from an overhead wire rope, strung between poles, mounted off to each side.  This is how the intersection at Great Road (Route 117) and Parker Street (Route 27) is set up, next to the Boys & Girls Club, the cemetery, and the athletic fields.

In many traditional intersections, the mechanism that controls the timing of the signals takes its cues from vehicle detection "loops" which are buried just under the surface of the pavement (see photo). They consist of a large rectangular coil of wire, connected to a "loop amplifier" unit, mounted inside the traffic control cabinet at the side of the road. The loop amplifier is essentially a box of analog electronics that works sort of like an upside down metal detector.  When a car drives over the loop, the metal in the car affects a sensitive magnetic field in the coil, which is detected by the loop amplifier. When that happens, it sends a pulse to the signal system, indicating that vehicles are waiting.

The pavement is cut with a saw to provide slots for the wire to be placed. Then the slots are filled in with a weather resistant epoxy compound. Some loops are paved over later, so they cannot be seen on the surface.

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However, installing loops is costly and they often fail to work reliably.  The wire in the coil can be broken by construction in the street or by "drift" of the asphalt when it softens and deforms under heavy traffic in the hot summer months.  In the past few years, some loops have been redesigned to detect bicycles, but with mixed results.  A bicycle with a carbon fiber frame, for example, cannot be detected by the "metal detector" technology used.

Lately, compact imaging devices and high speed microcomputer technology have given rise to a new method of vehicle detection.  Individual imaging devices are mounted on a fixed arm, positioned above traffic. Machine vision software analyzes each image within a fraction of a second to determine when cars,  bicycles, etc. are present at the stop line. They can then pass this information along to the signal controller mechanism to allow traffic to flow from that street.
However, for this to work properly, the imaging devices cannot be bouncing around in the wind, as they might be when hung from a wire rope. These devices, as well as traffic signals focused on particular lanes of traffic, must all be kept in alignment, as much as possible, regardless of weather conditions.

Imaging devices, shown sticking up above the arm,

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Acton Street is now in two sections

Back in mid September, when all the sidewalks, paving, and other ground work was completed, the Select Board voted to close the one-way section of Acton Street and enlarge Haynes Park to cover the area.  The contractor got to work right away, as their equipment and personnel were still on site and available at that time.  Unfortunately, this meant that a convenient bypass for drivers to avoid the dreaded intersection was closed off, long before the new signals could be installed, making driving in the area even more difficult than before.

Background #2

There are two questions to answer here:  Where did the money come from to do the work, and why close that section of Acton Street, in the first place?

The amount of money available wasn't known until work was finished on the main intersection project.  Since the contractor was able to finish all the paving, underground conduits, equipment foundations, etc., without significant weather delays or cost overruns, there was enough funding left over to implement this additional work, known in the world of engineering projects as a "change order."

The problems with Acton Street stem from where Haynes Street forks off to the right, just north of the Cumberland Farms store, and also from where the end of Maple Court merges with it, near Concord Street (indicated by the thin red arrow in the map shown below).
Well over 150 years ago, when Haynes, Brown, and Acton Streets were laid out, traffic consisted of a few horse drawn vehicles, so it was far easier to avoid collisions!  Now, traffic volume is many times greater, speeds are much higher, vehicles are much heavier, and yet human reaction times have not changed all  that much.  The danger all this presents has become quite serious. (For details, please see my previous story "Collision Course")

For drivers coming up from downtown, headed north on Acton Street just past Cumberland Farms, it's too dangerous for them to continue straight, because they cannot see around the bend to the right.  Cars traveling at high speed might be headed right at them, traveling south on Haynes Street.  That's why that portion of Acton Street was made one way and the "Do Not Enter" signs were first placed there.  To continue north on Acton Street, drivers instead have to go up Haynes Street, then turn left on Concord Street, then turn right on Acton Street.

Drivers who want to head straight, to continue up Acton Street, cannot see traffic coming down from Haynes Street, from the right, until it's too late!

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However, at the other end of that segment, Acton Street had to remain two way for a few feet because traffic that may be coming out of Maple Court (which is one way, heading north), had to join Acton Street to reach Concord Street.  It's true that Maple Court is a very small street and has very little traffic.  But I used to live on Maple Court and I had a couple of near misses when trying to exit out onto Acton Street.

I stopped at the stop sign, only to have a driver come flying around the corner from Concord Street to head down Acton Street, right in front of me.  If I had proceeded a moment later, we might have had a head-on collision!

To add to the mess, a few years ago, the old railroad right of way was converted into the Assabet River Rail Trail.  As the trail crossed Acton Street, just north of Cumberland Farms, this meant there were now two stop signs for drivers headed down Acton Street, one right after the other! The first one was to stop for users of rail trail, and the second one was to stop before the merge with Haynes Street.

Many drivers just rolled right through the first stop sign, then stopped at the second one. There, they had to turn their heads almost all the way around backwards to the left, to look for gaps in traffic coming down Haynes street, before being able to go.  I once saw a mail truck turn almost perpendicular to the roadway, just so the driver could look back up Haynes Street.

Here are three images based on what users of the rail trail encountered, one from before Acton Street was removed, one from the same direction after that, and a third showing what they would see, coming the other way, headed south.

Commentary

Clearly, I have again gone into some detail on this story.  I do that for two reasons.  First, because I consider myself partly an "non-institutionalized" teacher.  Although I went all the way through public school and later graduated from college, I am actually largely self-taught, and I like to provide learning resources for everyone, regardless of age,  socioeconomic status, or how much they are taking charge of their own learning process throughout life.  The internet has its drawbacks, but as a resource for learning, it's an amazing development, in my opinion, way beyond the World Book Encyclopedia I grew up with.  I'm glad to be able to contribute, as well as benefit from all this.

The second reason has to do with my appreciation of the level of detail that our local town government officials and employees, along with the various contractors and suppliers they deal with, have to live with every day.  Most of us have little idea of what it really takes to run a town, and that's understandable - today's world has a lot more going on to demand our attention!  We go to work, raise families, and maintain our homes as best we can.  Sometimes, there is little time for much else.

I have often heard people mention the high property tax rate we have here in Maynard.  I knew about the tax rate back while I was still considering whether or not to move here (in 2019).  I decided to move here anyway.  I knew this was a true town, with a real town feeling, plenty of volunteer work going on, and so forth.

I realize that Maynard is small, both in population (under 11,000), and land area (about 5 square miles, although it's more like 3 square miles when you subtract the area occupied by the Wildlife Refuge).  And yet, town government must provide many of the services that most larger cities and towns have to provide.  Much of what town government does is mandated by both federal and state laws, including maintaining the roads, providing water, treating the wastewater, collecting the trash, maintaining a library, police department, fire and emergency departments, and keep zoning laws up to date to respond to changing conditions.

This story is about one intersection in town, and yet it has only scratched the surface into what had to be done to complete the resulting project.

I'm not saying that every single penny is always efficiently spent; every organization could use some improvement.  But what I am saying is that, from what I can tell, the people who work for the town are dedicated folks, doing their best to keep our town running as efficiently as possible.  The tax rate we live with comes with the territory - a small town with limited property tax revenue has to work hard to balance its budget.  Yes, there may be disagreements at times, but overall, I hope that we can all work together to forge the compromises needed to go forward.

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(Apologies to Erle Stanley Gardner, Gail Patrick Jackson, Raymond Burr, and the CBS Television Network, for the title of this news story!)

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