Shorter term solutions include adding a “Stop Ahead” sign to the Bay Road approach, trimming vegetation all around the area, and repainting pavement markings, the Stop line and pavement edge lines.
BELCHERTOWN – A draft of a traffic study on the intersection of Federal Street and Bay Road recommends changing the roads geometrically to improve visibility and reduce the high number of crashes.
The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission found that an average of 24,845 vehicles approach the unsignaled, Y-shaped intersection every day. From 2006 through 2010, there were 16 crashes there, or .8 per million.
Belchertown is in the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s District 2, where the average crash rate for unsignaled intersections is .67 per million.
Fifteen of the accidents were rear-end collisions and one occurred at an angle when a turning driver failed to yield the right-of-way. Four of the rear-enders caused injuries, the report said, and five occurred when the road was wet. All but two accidents happened during daylight hours.
Bay Road intersects Federal Street at an acute angle, which the report says limits sight distance to the north. It recommends changing the Y shape to a T and redefining the movements of drivers on the Bay Road approach.
“Changing the geometry ... is a long term improvement measure,” the report reads. The town proposed installing a roundabout, but the location’s downward gradient would make that difficult.
The report suggested the town commission an engineering study to try to solve these and other problems with visibility and safety, including the fact that the right turn onto Federal Street appears to be a straight-away and drivers sometimes run the “Stop” sign.
Belchertown Department of Public Works Superintendent Steven J. Williams said that since Federal Street is a state road, the town will have to work hand-in-hand with MassDOT.
“Any corrective measures, whether they’re short-term or long-term, will have to be coordinated with them,” he said.
If it came down to the need for major reconstruction, Williams said he anticipates the state would approve it.
Shorter term solutions include adding a “Stop Ahead” sign to the Bay Road approach, trimming vegetation all around the area, and repainting pavement markings, the Stop line and pavement edge lines.
“That’s something we can take care of, weather permitting,” Williams said, who added the work would be difficult in the winter.
He said that, despite the high number of crashes, the intersection isn’t “infamous.” In fact, it’s not even the most dangerous in town.
The intersection of Federal Street and Route 202 was number 70 on the planning commission’s 2008 report of the 100 most dangerous intersections in the Pioneer Valley region.
The Board of Selectmen will have an opportunity to suggest changes to the report at the Feb. 13 meeting, and then a final draft will be released.