The following letter to the editor was submitted by Andover resident Jesse Jacobson, who holds a PhD in transportation systems from MIT. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Andover News. You can learn more about our policy on opinion and commentary on our Mission and Policies page.
At the Select Board meeting of September 30, 2024 there was much debate on whether to approve a reduced speed limit on Lovejoy Road. The reduced speed limit requires action by the Select Board and, because of conflicting positions, the decision was made to postpone a vote on this subject to the next meeting.
Here I want to provide some analytical support in favor of the reduced speed limits.
First, and foremost, thanks to crowdsourcing, Lovejoy Road is a demonstrable daily commute-time spillover roadway for I-93 commuter traffic. When there is congestion on I-93 (every working day, morning and evening), Lovejoy becomes a most popular diversion. Yet, while I-93 is a multi-lane limited-access expressway with guard rails and median-separated directions, Lovejoy has 11 crosswalks, 11 intersections, one park, a nearby golf course, and 100 homes (i.e., driveways), and plenty of children, young and senior pedestrians at all hours of the day. Lovejoy Road, in other words, is thickly-settled and, according to the Massachusetts manual called Procedures for Speed Zoning (revised September 2021), should be [ed.: emphasis] designated as a Safety Zone with a speed limit of 20mph.
The regulation that sets Lovejoy Road at a 35mph speed limit (Special Speed Regulation #333), is undoubtedly obsolete. At almost 60-years old (dated 1966), it belongs to the era of the Volkswagen Beetle. But now-a-days pedestrians are towered by the extremely popular Ford series F150 trucks. They weight almost three times as much as the Beetle and have a blunt profile, a ghastly sentence for unfortunate pedestrians. Furthermore, it is reported (AAA, 2011) that the pedestrian fatality rate when the vehicle speed is 35mph is three times the fatality rate measured when the vehicle speed is 25mph.
In August 2023 the Select Board voted to adopt the Federal Highway Administration Vision Zero program and Lovejoy Road would likely be a first, and certainly most prominent, opportunity to deliver on the Vision Zero promise.
Jesse Jacobson
Andover
About the author: Even before graduating with a civil engineering degree, the author participated in a major forensic study of 10 fatal freeway crashes. After earning a PhD in Transportation Systems from MIT, he worked for a few years at a research unit of the US Department of Transportation. He was also briefly the subject-matter expert at USDOT for Right-Turn-on-Red. He works closely with George Thorlin, the founder of Andover Safe Streets.
Andover News accepts and encourage reader submissions, including letters to the editor and opinion columns. Submissions should be 750 words long or fewer and Andover-focused. Please include your name, title if applicable to your topic and connection or interest in Andover. We also need a phone number so we can confirm authorship. Send us your prose!