Road Work Ahead

I thought the orange "Road Work Ahead" signs were for the new four-way stop at North Morningside and Cumberland.  Then they showed up with the orange barrels and the port-a-potty and closed the section of the street where North Morningside transforms itself into East Morningside and bypasses the intersection of East Rock Springs and North Pelham.  It looks like something serious is underway, but it's not at all obvious exactly what.

It is obvious though that forcing all the eastbound traffic on East Morningside through the 4-way stop at East Morningside/North Pelham/East Rock Springs produces a massive traffic backup, at least at 7 p.m.

It turns out that this work -- the new 4-way stop at North Morningside and Cumberland and the construction work now at the junction of North Morningside and East Morningside -- are funded through a grant program intended to make walking safer to school.   The plan, according the the Safe Routes to School plan, is to close the lane connecting North Morningside to East Morningside.  It's not clear what else is envisioned, since the diagram that is noted is not included (or I couldn't find it) in the pdf that is on line.

I'm all for pedestrian safety, and crosswalks and slowing traffic are an important tools to improve safety.  But no data were included in the plan on actual traffic volumes through these intersections.  I hope that whatever they end up doing works better than what they have right now.  Cars were backed up, toward Piedmont, as far as I could see at 7 p.m. this evening, when I took the picture above, and Tom said it was that way at 5 p.m., too.   It may be that the plan is to put a traffic light at the intersection -- that's what the budget for the project would suggest -- and rely on drivers re-routing to avoid the area.

For the impatient drivers in the neighborhood, that four-way stop at North Morningside and Cumberland may be the least of their problems.