Elm Square Safety Improvements

June 26th, 2023

RE: Update on Elm Square RSA site visit

Today, Walk Bike Andover, along with representatives from nearly a dozen other organizations, met to participate in the Elm Square Road Safety Audit site visit, led by the Town's traffic engineering consultant, TEC.

For the first hour, participants gathered to provide information on safety concerns about the operation, geometry, signage, signaling, and configuration of the Elm Square intersection, comprising Main St., Elm St., High St., Central St., and Essex St. We reviewed traffic counts, signal operation, a 6-year crash history, and public comments gathered via the first safety forum and via email.

The second hour was spent observing the intersection in person, broken up into small groups. Additional concerns and traffic events were noted and potential safety interventions were discussed in these groups.

Finally, the last hour was spent discussing specific potential operational, geometric, and other changes in order to address each of the safety concerns. In total, we estimate that around 40 specific changes were discussed and documented. Some of these may ultimately be deemed infeasible, and others constitute “either/or” design alternatives.

TEC will take the next week to compile this information into a draft RSA report, outlining the safety issues and detailing each proposed short-, medium-, or long-term change, its impacts, and an estimated cost. Participants will then have a chance to comment on the draft report before it's finalized.

We estimate that the final public RSA report will be released by the last week of July. Although we will not be able to share the private drafts, we will provide updates as each subsequent step is completed and will help publicize the final report once it enters the public record. 

Anyone with questions or additional comments is encouraged to reach out to us via email, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. 

Walk Bike Andover