BOURNE – Bourne’s Police Chief is speaking out about the state highway department’s plan to re-stripe the Bourne Rotary.
At a recent Bourne Board of Selectmen’s meeting, Police Chief Dennis Woodside expressed his concerns with adding traffic lines around the rotary, noting that it would confuse drivers.
“I think there’s planning that has to be done in that intersection, as we’ve seen multiple plans with the transportation advisory committee, to find a way to make that work but, to just put lines in that rotary, the way it’s currently configured, is a giant mistake,” said Chief Woodside.
MassDOT’s plan calls for dividing the rotary into two lanes, with solid and broken lines at points around the rotary.
Outer lanes of the circle would funnel traffic to Sandwich Road, Trowbridge Road and MacArthur Boulevard.
Westbound traffic on Sandwich Road would be divided into two lanes with one lane for traffic heading over the bridge.
Chief Woodside was initially in favor of the plans when they were drafted by the state in February, but changed his position in May when he saw how confused drivers were after MassDot accidentally striped the rotary into two lanes.
The Chief is also calling for the removal of the two curb cuts that MassDOT put in place on the Bourne Bridge that allows traffic to access the parking lot of the new Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Those curb cuts are extremely dangerous and they should be removed,” said Chief Woodside.
“They should’ve never been able to go on for as long as they did. I don’t want to hurt local business−I really don’t−[but] that’s a tough area.”
A letter has been sent to MassDOT on behalf of Selectmen to attend a future meeting to discuss the concerns.
Have to agree with the chief solidly will confuse drivers that are not used to navigating rotarys and have to give the the town council and selectman a thumbs down for allowing a Dunkin Donuts shop in that location a horror show waiting to happen.