It’s true, as a Northampton ward councilor points out, there is no easy solution to the problem of truck traffic on residential streets near the city’s Coca-Cola Co. plant, particularly Lincoln Avenue.
If there was a simple fix, the noise, vibration and sheer danger residents have endured from passing 18-wheelers would have ceased years ago.
But calling the problem complex doesn’t relieve city officials of the duty to address a public safety hazard that’s been allowed to exist far too long.
Last week, aggrieved residents of the neighborhood east of downtown made yet another trip to City Hall. Michael Spink of Lincoln Avenue told councilors truck trips wake members of his family. Cynthia Rochan of Day Avenue said the rumble of these enormous vehicles — far bigger than what these streets were designed to handle and more than a dozen of them a day — damaged her ceiling and steps.
Spink said it’s been a problem for seven years.
That’s a long time for residents to live with this. It didn’t help that it took a full year after a council vote in 2014 for new signs to go up on these streets warning truck drivers they face a $300 fine for violating a truck ban. A former Department of Public Works chief admitted it wasn’t a priority.
Not long ago, Northampton fought hard to win Coke’s agreement to expand at its Industrial Drive facility rather than relocate. The $50 million project was good economic news for the city, but intensified the traffic problem, despite efforts by the plant to inform drivers coming off I-91 at Exit 19 to take Damon Road to the northern entrance to the Industrial Park.
Many drivers follow that “preferred route.” But others, particularly independent suppliers not tuned in to company pronouncements, rely on GPS systems, at least one of which sends drivers west on Bridge Street from the interstate and then north on Lincoln Avenue. A test by the Gazette last year found that mapping software used by Apple devices sent traffic the right way, but Google maps did not.
Explanations from officials last week seemed accurate, but carried a scent of surrender, though Mayor David J. Narkewicz pledged to keep working with neighbors and the Coke plant.
Other possible steps include positioning a police cruiser in the area now and then to stop trucks that violate the ban on travel along these side streets. Drivers who violate the ban would see the city is taking it seriously.
If it hasn’t done so already, the city should also appeal to Google to correct its mapping software. If that map is responsible for most of this problem, the solution might be relatively simple after all.
Further, while there is a sign on the northbound Exit 19 off-ramp warning drivers not to turn left onto Bridge Street, that sign is placed too far down the ramp.
By the time drivers see it, it’s too late to go straight through the intersection onto Damon Road.
Here’s a relatively simple action: Add a sign that alerts drivers sooner.
One indirect remedy could be the planned construction of a roundabout at the foot of the Exit 19 off-ramp, but that project is years away.
Traffic planners might secretly prefer to see Lincoln Avenue used as a safety valve, of sorts, to keep big rigs from becoming stuck under the railroad bridge at the eastern start of Main Street. Councilor Ryan O’Donnell has spoken of efforts to find another place to send trucks from Bridge Street so drivers can turn around and get back on the preferred route. Is that idea dead?
Officials owe it to Ward 3 residents to keep this problem at the top of the agenda.
Last summer, when she joined a delegation of residents who spoke at the start of a City Council meeting, Kamas Choi of Lincoln Avenue said this: “We’re just going to be persistent and relentless until something gets done.”
That does seem to be what it will take.