by Glenn C. Koenig, Webmaster at Town Wide Mall (Note: This Story has been updated as of 5 February 2025)
Background #1
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. 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 #2There 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")
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!
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. Town Wide Mall is free for anyone to read and carries no advertising, so our only means of support is from donations. Please consider helping with a donation of any amount. Click on the Donate button, below, to see the options. (Apologies to Erle Stanley Gardner, Gail Patrick Jackson, Raymond Burr, and the CBS Television Network, for the title of this news story!)
5 Comments
George
2/5/2025 07:29:42 pm
Great article Glenn. Quite informative - Thank you for your work in publishing this...it took some good sleuthing.
Reply
Doug
2/5/2025 08:52:58 pm
Yes, excellent article, and I appreciated the kudos for the town government. I know from my own life how quickly what seems like the simplest things somehow get very complicated!
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Mary
2/5/2025 09:45:54 pm
Great article! Thank you. 50 years ago at age 16, I had my very first fender bender coming from Concord st to take a left. Around 2011 my mother was in a head on collision on Acton St just as you described that almost happened to the author. Someone coming on the wrong direction! It’s always been a very dangerous intersection and happy it is being resolved and hopefully has a positive outcome. But lights are needed soon!
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Thank you for promoting understanding about how the issues our small town must deal with in the face of limited revenues. Even though we gripe about the high taxes, we would gripe even more if there was even less money for repairs and improvements. As it is, larger construction projects require budget overrides, always a tough sell.
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Denise
2/6/2025 12:24:33 pm
Small correction. You said, "I once saw a mail truck turn almost perpendicular to the roadway, just so the driver could look back up Haynes Street." I think you mean Brown Street.
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