So for the first time since Southwest Towers were rolling open fields, Lincoln Avenue is no longer an access route to venerable Umass, Amherst's #1 employer.
Although it looks to me like you could still drive a large truck bomb around the obstacles. UPDATE: 5:00 PM. I guess they were not quite done; now the barricades completely close off the street.
75 comments:
Shouldn't route 9 and Main St be one way too or is it just neighborhoods with North/ South streets that get custom traffic routing solutions?
If they'd fix the bottleneck at the intersection of University and Main, people wouldn't be looking for low traffic access to the University.
Right Ed? Another case of "the man" putting down UMass UMass UMass?
that is the most bullshit thing i have seen amherst do yet.
Absolute Crap! And the backlash against Shaffer on this one will be very big!
Lincoln and Sunset Ave are filled with houses owned by big money Academics who can cast influence with their money and power. Just the thing their left leaning politics supposedly decry.
Anyway UMASS is the region's biggest employer, its economic engine, and most of the town of Amherst does not live on Lincoln and Sunset Aves, so they will see this as big inconvenience and rise up against the Town Manager who forced it down the throat of the people he rules with tyrannical force and a Select Board who has allowed him to run amok on an overdose of power.
"He with the gold rules" Fearing street residents got royally srewed. All the traffic is going to take a left onto Fearing to get to UMASS.
Woodside Ave got such preferential treatment as well...in fact we paid big $ to make the bridge usable as it's a public thoroughfare and the law said the bridge must be able to take traffic....but then we closed it off because the people there like their quiet neighborhood. (not Mr. Shaeffer's domain then but same thing happened then and NOBODY in our town govt. prevented it)
The town manager has been trying to please the Lincoln Ave people for some time; and has spent OUR tax dollars to do so.
Lincoln Ave has sidewalks....many other dangerous streets do not and yet remain thoroughfares.
I'd like to see a journalist seek to see what is behind Mr. Shaeffer's preference for these residents..we in Amherst keep getting stuck with "rah, rah reporters"...on all of the things that happen in this town.
-Elaine
Give me a break. This is a residential street not a highway. The houses of Lincoln Ave. predate southwest and all the rest of UMass that wasn't there when it was a sleepy little agricultural school. Boo hoo, so your drive to work is two minutes longer. Get over it.
Spoken like a Lincoln Avenue resident.
How about thinking a bit ...when you buy a house the price is determined by location. Those houses on less travelled streets typically have a value that is greater than those on more heavily traveled.
I will venture to guess that most, if not all, of the residents of Lincoln Avenue bought their houses AFTER the university was built. They obtained nice houses with lower price tags than if those houses were on cul de sacs AND they obtained houses with close proximity to town and university.
Now they want to get a limited access street BUT they were not willilng to pay for that in price or location when they bought their houses.
Their argument has been safety...but they have sidewalks. Pine St, Southeast St, East Pleasant, Northeast St, many many others that are "shortcuts" etc. do NOT have sidewalks. and have faster traffic.
I put it to you that "getting over it" is exactly what those privileged residents feel. Because they DESERVE it...
And they deserve it because they have the time, the money, and the wherewithall to play the system and keep being a squeaky wheel.
-E
oh, and not to be an "ed" but I do have an additional comment. This does not affect my commute nor my biking at all....
it does however USE MY TAX dollars to benefit a very few who want a "quiet less-travelled street"
Not a good use of tax dollars in a town filled with pot-holed, non-sidewalked, dangerous streets.
Drove past someone i recognized today, on side of the road, with a black and white car with pretty blue lights flashing behind him.... not above the law after all!!!!
Yeah, I was gonna mention that.
He pulled me over for not staying within the very recently marked lanes detouring around the blockade.
Apparently Amherst PD is going to do a few days of "education" near the blockade, so they are only giving out warnings at the moment.
If they simply stationed a black and white there for the same time period with radar and issued speeding tickets it could also solve the problem (not to mention generating municipal revenues rather than consuming them.)
Well I hope now that the elite have there pivate way there property values reflect as well. We can't lose "Larry the wannabe Shaffer" fast enough. Amherst is the model town where perpetual whinning always wins because the politicians don't have the knowledge or backbone to address issues just like this one. It's easier to bend over and bury your heads in the sand. UNBELIEVABLE!
Dale
Larry,
You're an expert on this, so:
1) Check out where the chair of the Public Works Committee lives.
2) Determine whether he recused himself from ALL
discussions regarding this "experiment" (he didn't in the past, but perhaps he did more recently).
3) File a formal complaint with the State Ethics Commission.
Your Friend
For folks complaining here: are you upset because the property values in that neighborhood will probably go up? Or are you upset because your commute became a little longer?
I'm weird, but I've never felt jealous because of another person's good fortune. I don't live on Lincoln, but I'm happy for the people that DO live there; their street is a little safer, and their property is probably worth a little bit more. Seems to me both of those are good things for our Town.
Cement barriers in the middle of the road do not make property values rise....They are an eye sore.
I do not appreciate my tax dollars being used to to increase the value of someone else's home. I also do not appreciate elitist snobs getting their way at my expense, while the pavement on my street is in rotting decay.
I hope drunken students urinate on their lawns everynight and the residents of Lincoln Avenue wake up to beer cans and broken bottles all over their lawns everyday, now until this unjust corrupt government that rules Amherst is voted out of office and this injustice to the rest of the tax payers in this town is overturned.
sand hill road.
where is the study for this ridiculous road closure?
a letter written by whiny lincoln road residents?
any planner with half his salt knows that rerouting traffic on well established ways results in chaos on the alternate streets. who approved this in the planning dept? christene brestrup? that wouldn't surprise me, look at her design for the playground at mill river rec area...what a joke of a designer. remember that firm, brestrup and thompson, landscape architects? destroying one yard at a time with uninformed design.
amherst is a cruel parody of itself.
I plan on organizing regular protests and marching down Lincoln Avenue, loudly vocalizing my disapproval of the injustice done to Fearing and Amity Street residents and all Amherst tax payers by this mockery of urban planning, foisted upon us by the rich elite on Lincoln Ave and the evil doers who run the town. Hopefully enough people will join me that the noise from our protests will make the disgusting, morally bankrupt pigs who live on Lincoln and Sunset wish for the days cars drove down their roads.
I'm with Gavin Andresen: why crap on someone else's good fortune? How many of us got any satisfaction out of that moment when the happy gum-chewer in the back of the class got called out by the teacher, who then asked "do you have some for everybody in the class?" (and, of course, he didn't) To revive a phrase, "don't be a spoil-sport".
We have a speeding problem in our South Amherst neighborhood but it comes from people who live in it who simply thumb their noses at the rest of us: some community.
If folks in another part of town figure out a way to get the Town to lessen the chance a child from there is going to get run down like a dog, I think that's great.
Sometimes it's good to fight back that reflexive, envious sneer, and move on. Otherwise, where does it get us? Nowhere.
Rich Morse
Anonymous @ 9:03PM :
EITHER: the concrete barriers are an eyesore and will decrease property values. In which case it seems you aught to be happy; fie on those elitist folks living on Lincoln! Let Them Suffer the Injustice of Ugly Concrete Barricades Forevermore!
OR: they'll make the street safer and a more desirable place to live.
Which will increase property values.
Which will mean they'll (eventually) pay more property taxes to the Town.
Which means you'll pay (relatively) less.
Which should make you happy.
I think I'll have to blog about the interesting behavioral economics research I've read that shows that "sour grapes" is very real (but irrational and self-defeating).
Great stuff, Gavin.
In other words, quit whining!
At least until tomorrow, of course, when we will turn yet another silk purse into a sow's ear as we squat on top of some other mountainous molehill of invented controversy.
Rich Morse
"I plan on organizing regular protests and marching down Lincoln Avenue, loudly vocalizing my disapproval of the injustice done to Fearing and Amity Street residents and all Amherst tax payers by this mockery of urban planning, foisted upon us by the rich elite on Lincoln Ave and the evil doers who run the town."
They shouldn't put up a barrier, they should be a 20-foot wall. UMass students are spoiled uncouth jerks. Keep out.
name me one incident where someone got injured on lincoln ave.
"I plan on organizing regular protests and marching down Lincoln Avenue, loudly vocalizing my disapproval..."
Will you wear a hood to maintain your anonymity?
Funny how Rob Kusner loves to sign comments with pseudonyms.
It is not fair that a few people whined to the town and got their way at the expense of many who do not benefit.
To those who want to build a wall around Umass, maybe you would think differently if the University and other colleges refused to provide any money to the towns and none of the students or families spent any money in the town? Your precious property values would sink. Perhaps they could ban all Amherst residents from working at the colleges? That is about equal to your wall proposal.
The town is filled with people who want to embrace and include everyone, except those who disagree with them and to those they shun.
This is not a move to keep out students, as they are already on campus. It's a move to keep thousands of staff from using this street as an alternative route to using University Drive or driving through the center of town. Thousands of staff stream in every morning and stream out every evening on a quiet residential street.
I am interested in what the traffic flow was and how it is expected to play out now. Will people coming to and leaving UMass from Route 9 who would have taken Lincoln now choose University Drive or get on Lincoln off Route 9 then go down Amity street and pick up University Drive there? I wonder if there will be a huge traffic back-up at times on Amity. (I'm not weighing in for or against the roadblock, I just want to be prepared as I have to get on to Amity to go anywhere beyond my street.)
The barriers simply send the traffic to another residential road, where presumably safety is less important?...or they send the traffic straight into town center to create grid-lock. These barriers cause a knock-on effect on the neighboring roads, for example McClellen will be used more and it is even more of a side road than Lincoln. Any guilt? Its not a simple issue of making life better for Lincoln and Sunset streets, making it better for them makes it WORSE for another street(s). Is that fair?
But safety was never the real issue (the cushions took care of speed very effectively). It is the volume of traffic that is unsightly and ruins the peace and quiet of their neighborhood. Give examples of how that road is more dangerous than the surrounding residential roads (many that don't have sidewalks).
Because the road is straight it encourages excessive speed.
This experiment is creating quite a long line of cars at times, idling on Fearing Street while waiting to turn onto North Pleasant Street. There's plenty of discussion here about slowing cars down, but do we really need more idling around this town? This isn't good for air quality, nor is it good for fuel efficiency.
It's ridiculous, special interest, squeaky wheel gets the grease governance. The mountain out of the mole hill was created by Lincoln Ave. residents (who for some reason think they deserve safer, calmer streets than the rest of us--including their adjacent neighbors) and town government (who for some reason can't seem to come up with general policies to help address University related excessive speeding, traffic and general nuisance--like for instance expecting University Police to chip in on the effort to enforce appropriate regulations related to such excesses. This has nothing to do with sour grapes about a neighborhood improvement. It's about an overblown, misguided reaction to neighborhood complaints that, in my view, are part of a much larger problem. A problem that, conveniently, can continue to be ignored if this piecemeal approach to quelling the complaining works. Did anyone else at Town Meeting this spring notice that the Town Manager didn't have a single concrete example to offer in relation to how the mutual partnership agreement with UMASS is benefiting the town's policing efforts? Instead, he spoke in complete generality about the "strong working relationship" between the two departments. Did anyone else hear Chief Sherpa state that regionalization was the wave of the future and that in fifteen years we can expect to see regionalized police services? FIFTEEN YEARS? We can do better than we're doing with our combined resources, but not until we put that expectation out there and set policy to back it up.
I don't get what all your crying is about. If it takes commuters an extra 5 minutes to get to work so what? If you live on Lincoln Ave. and have to put up with the constant noise all day it's a much bigger inconvenience. This a solution to a long time problem that the neighborhood has been battling for years.
Anon 6:36 and others:
I don't think I'm "crying about" the changes on Lincoln when I ask where those cars are driving now. They don't just disappear, they get pushed to other streets that other people live on. As other posters have noted, many of those other streets are smaller and lack sidewalks. I certainly hope that the town is running a traffic study concurrent with the barricade's presence.
I'd be all in favor of bringing back the speed bumps, but I oppose closing Lincoln. It's a public road. To complain about the traffic volume on Lincoln strikes me as similar to complaining about airplane noise after buying a house near the airport.
University Drive, hint, hint, that is the drive that goes to the University. So use it!
"If it takes commuters an extra 5 minutes to get to work so what?"
5 x 200 working days a year= 1000 minutes a year= 17 hours= 2 full work days
2 days x how many commuters=?
that is foolish talk about an extra 5 minutes not mattering.
not to mention the extra gas
the next thing the Lincoln ave folks can complain about is how long it will take for AFD and APD to get there. And the other streets too.
For those getting all fired up about the traffic calming experiments on Lincoln Avenue:
I live on Lincoln avenue. We moved here ten years ago.
Many, if not most, of the residents on the street are, like me, parents of school age children. They are teachers in the public schools, retired folks, self-employed workers, unemployed workers, therapists, office workers, stay at home moms, non-profit program managers, school administrators, doctors, and professors, to name a few.
Between Amity and Fearing streets there is not one cross walk and because there is a sidewalk on only one side of the street, there is no legal or safe crossing. We regularly see cars speeding down the street; going 20+ miles over the posted speed limit. There clearly need to be multiple traffic calming strategies that work for everyone; the neighborhoods, the commuters and emergency services. However, I wouldn't care if the largest employer in the nation was down the street from me; it still would not make it tolerable or acceptable for my kids to be endangered or for people to go highway speeds on a residential street. Every parent in town has the right to work towards making their neighborhoods safe and keeping their children safe regardless of the neighborhood they live in or its' proximity to major employers.
Then put in permanant speed bumps like at the apartment complexes and the high school. Its not rocket science.
It's clear that it's the staff driving to work that are the selfish ones, not the residents. "You will add to my commuting time." Boo hoo!
I haven't heard of a single post addressing the issue of passing the problem on to other neighboring residential roads (that are likely less safe) from those who support the barriers on Lincoln and Sunset.
What do you say Anon@1:54, Christina, Anon@636, etc?
Is a study of the resultant change in traffic going to happen concomitant with these barriers? If this is an "experiment" (quote from Christina) then the data has to be collected...If not, then its NOT an experiment!
Christina,
I don't see any difference in the characterization of your neighbors/neighborhood compared to most others in town. We all have a variety of ways that we make our livings. We all care about our children and their safety. We all (or at least most of us) suffer the effects of busy commuter traffic often exceeding posted speed limits. So why does your neighborhood deserve a special solution to a much larger problem; especially given that we DON'T all have even the one sidewalk you're referencing as being so inadequate? This issue needs to be looked at with a bigger lens.
All you have to do is make Mclellan one way going towards Lincoln and you won't have any displacement on that street. Eventually people will figure out that they can drive on 116, University Drive or through the center of town.
What makes you think that folks on McClellan WANT a one way street? Jeeeesh. Talk about egocentric, solve my problem no matter what the cost to others thinking.
I am already here rumblings that property abutters to lincoln and sunset ave are considering a lawsuit against the town pver the barrier being placed having caused there neighborhoods undo harm.
This could get ugly and drawn out pitting neighbor against neighbor.
Yeah right. There's a made up one if I've ever heard one.
So it all comes down for taking personal responsibility.
Responsibility for the street you chose to live on. Responsibility for the safe and lawful operation of your vehicle (automobile, truck or bike). Even though most of the current parents and drivers grew up in a "Burger King World" (have it your way. Special orders don't affect us). It is important to remember that each and every action we make can have a positive and negative effect on someone else.
So, we should eliminate traffic lights and just have personal responsibility?
Traffic flow management was developed because the prior method of using personal responsibility created too many car crashes. The invention of the stop sign was made neccessary because people couldn't be relied on to use common sense and stop.
You can't rely on them to slow down on Lincoln Avenue either.
Did some Anon Clown here really just compare the invention of traffic lights to the placement of barriers on Lincoln Ave. The barriers on Lincoln Ave have anything to do with personal safety. Please provide the data on the number of serious accidents resulting in serious bodily injury or death on Lincoln Ave in the last 5 years? Oh wait a minute, you can't? Because there were none. That is right, folks, ZERO.
This is all about the spoiled brat, well to snobs on lincoln
Ironically, a friend of mine who bikes through there every day back and forth to work has told me that he feels much LESS safe with the barriers in place. It's tricky to navigate through the more narrow space in relation to vehicles trying to do the same.
"Absolute Crap! And the backlash against Shaffer on this one will be very big!"
By whom?
By non-Amherst residents commuting to work? By students that are not residents either?
They had better be gone by the time that I am back or the town is going to be dealing with so much administrative stuff that they are going to have to hire a competent town manager.
And the other thing -- am I going to go most of the way to Walmart and then turn around, or am I going to keep going? Answer -- Downtown Amherst Business, RIP!!!
One other thing -- Lincoln Avenue was built as the MAIN ROAD TO UMASS -- it ends at Whitmore now, but you know the Student Union Circle, well it was a circle off Lincoln Avenue.
So it was the main road since 1887 or so, the houses were built on it BECAUSE it was the main road, and everyone who bought one of those houses should have known that.
And like I said, there *will be* mountains of paperwork on the Town Mangler if he doesn't remove those damn things! Trust me on this....
Ed,
You are a complete paper tiger.
Thanks for the laugh though.
How about by we residents who live on busy streets (yes by choice--just like the Lincoln Ave folks bought their houses by choice) without sidewalks who would like to see some resources going to make OUR streets safer? Rather than this infantile vendetta against the major employer in our area???
It's ok to block off public thoroughfares because some commuters to UM use them?
That seems to be the common thread here.
If it's safer, slower traffic that is needed SPEEDBUMPS WILL DO THAT.
Making a street virtually a private street is a whole different animal.
-not a commuter but an Amherst Taxpayer,
"Absolute Crap! And the backlash against Shaffer on this one will be very big!"
By whom?
By non-Amherst residents commuting to work? By students that are not residents either?
Are you clueless, dumb, or both?
Shaffer made a public road, built and maintained by Amherst residents' tax dollars, as well as state supplied local aid money and state and federal infrastrucure money into a private way, restricting access to the town's largest employer, which is a tax payer funded enterprise.
Beyond that tiny little issue, there is the point that many Amherst residents do work at Umass and for local aid purposes Umass students do count as Amherst residents.
This decision is going to bring a furious reign of endless problems crashing down on Shaffer.
You would think that this is the first street that a town ever changed zccess to in any way. This happens all the time. The world is not ending. You whiners will all get to work just fine tomorrow. You'll just do it on University Drive where you belong. Note to self, leave 5 minutes earlier.
Note to all Amherst Residents, Umass Students & Employees apply pressure to the Town of Amherst to either remove the barriers or have Lincoln Ave designated as a Private Way and make the residents of the road pay 100% of the cost of paving, street sweeping, snow removal, side walk upkeep, pothole filling, etc. of the road. It is now a private way, that these fine private citizens lobbied for, so private funds should maintain it.
It's NOT a private way, it's just not a highway to UMass. It's not closed at all, it just doesn't connect to UMass.
Regarding all the helpful suggestions about speed bumps:
Pay attention to the backstory. These neighborhoods have been begging the town for speed bumps for years, as well as lower speed limits, but these requests have all been REFUSED.
We'd be thrilled to have speed bumps. So let's put that to rest.
Remember, the town spent $1.2 million in tax money to repair the bridge at the end of Woodside Dr. and then closed (actually completely closed, not just one way) the street, in response to neighbors requests.
This doesn't just benefit one end of Lincoln and Sunset, either. I bet things are nice and quiet and safe in front of the Lincoln Apartments, too.
anon 8:53,
I was posing the question of speedbumps twords the town. It has been asked elsewhere and I have yet to see any sort of answer from the town. Has the neighborhood received one?
Comments on the Lincoln Traffic Calming exercise can be sent to:
publicworks@amherstma.gov
Be sure to put "Traffic Calming Comments" in the subject line.
Yes, the answer we got from the town was NO to speedbumps because they also slow down fire/ambulance vehicles.
And yet, the elementary schools have speed bumps and every apartment complex I've been in has speed bumps.
Also, in response to the question about collecting data on where the traffic is going:
There are car counting strips on all the surrounding streets as well as on incoln and Sunset.
So data will be collected and it IS an experiment!
This is one of Shaffer's most outrageous abuses of power. The powerful elite of Lincoln Avenue who care nothing about anyone except themselves have decreased the safety for every other commuter and resident of adjacent roads by increasing traffic on them all to benefit themsevles. Horrible people who deserve none of my tax dollars!
Slowing down emergency vehicles is one of the stupidest excuses I've ever heard! What do they think putting up road blocks is doing? The larger engines cant get around those. Why can't Amherst ever do anything the easy way?
"Note to all Amherst Residents, Umass Students & Employees apply pressure to the Town of Amherst to either remove the barriers or have Lincoln Ave designated as a Private Way and make the residents of the road pay 100% of the cost of paving, street sweeping, snow removal, side walk upkeep, pothole filling, etc. of the road."
THE TOWN IS FULL OF DEAD END STREETS. THEY PAVE & PLOW THEM ALL.
Ed,
How many cars drove on it in 1887? Times change.
What about those naturally occurring "speed bumps" on Mill Lane? Why no concern about emergency vehicles there? Yet another example of the wants of the few taking precedence over the needs of the many.
Anon 1:43:
How many Lincoln Avenue residents bought their homes in 1887?
THE TOWN IS FULL OF DEAD END STREETS. THEY PAVE & PLOW THEM ALL.
My, My you are dumb. Your argument is so pathetic, it is laughable. The town did not use tax dollars to close down those dead end streets in order to better serve a street's few well to do residents, while disrupting and endangering many others at the expense of all other taxpayers. Also those homes on dead end streets were bought by people paying for the quietness of a dead end street.
The Lincoln Ave folks want it both ways. Close to town and umass but none of the traffic that comes with that.
You speak without reason and your argument is meritless.
To local,
I haven't seen traffic counters on N. Pleasant through town (i.e. north of main) or on Hallock/N Prospect (as much a residential road as Lincoln and Sunset). Of course it would be meaningless unless they had the "before" data. I can say that N. Pleasant was very backed up this evening ~5pm, but don't know if its worse than "before".
from today's Gazette:
"Steve Braun, chairman of the Public Works Committee and a Lincoln Avenue resident, said the test, supported by the committee, has been effective. Braun said he believes a long-term solution will involve barriers of some sort, but possibly at a different location.
"I'm pleased with it, even though I totally agree it's not the end solution," Braun said"
Post a Comment