Traffic Commission to examine Riverside parking and Charger St. speeding issues

Advocate Staff report

Revere residents from the Riverside area were at last month’s Traffic Commission meeting to plead with commissioners to reverse a five-year-old decision to restrict parking to one side of their streets. The change was made to ensure safety and allow service vehicles to move through the narrow roads. But residents, some who have lived in the neighborhood for decades, say there has never been a problem with school buses, ambulances, plows or any other vehicle moving through the streets. Several residents mentioned paying thousands and thousands of dollars in property and excise taxes but not being able to park in front of their homes. Other residents described problems with visitor parking and having to park in streets away from where they live.

“I am respectfully asking that you consider what the neighborhood wants,” said Ward 5 Councillor Angela Guarino-Sawaya, who was at the meeting in support of her constituents.

“I think you’re trying to inconvenience residents. I have to side with the neighborhood. Since day one, they have had two-sided parking,” she said.

Traffic Commission Chair/DPW Superintendent Chris Ciaramella said two cars would take seven feet on both sides of the street, leaving just 10 feet of road space for other vehicles. Ciaramella said a DPW plow is 11 feet wide. Guarino-Sawaya proposed implementing a snow emergency that would require all cars to be moved off the streets. The commission voted to table the request for 30 days to give the traffic working group time to conduct a feasibility study.

“We really do need help,” one resident told the commission after the vote.

The traffic working group also recommended a stop sign for Charger Street, a road with a high volume of traffic and a problem with speeding.

Charger Street resident Christine Robertson brought a petition from the Charger Street neighborhood requesting a speed bump. “Speeding is out of control,” said Robertson. “A speed bump would be so helpful; we need something to control this.”

Robertson thanked the commission for the stop sign but said she didn’t think it would solve the problem. “People just look at signs and blow through them,” she said, adding that a speed bump would force drivers to decrease their speed.

Ward 6 Councillor Chris Giannino agreed and said drivers typically reduce speed by five miles an hour in response to a sign, but speed bumps slow drivers down 10 miles an hour. The commission voted to start with the sign and move to more intensive measures if that fails to slow traffic down.

Councillor Guarino-Sawaya also requested speed bumps for Rice and Mills Avenues. Those requests were referred to the traffic working group for evaluation.

The commission also voted to make the following multifamily developments ineligible for residential parking stickers: 8 Avon St., Amaya at Suffolk Downs, 650 Beach St., 51-53 Centennial Ave., 21 Green St., 1510 North Shore Rd., 1499 North Shore Rd., 1198 North Shore Rd., 1473 North Shore Rd., 110 Ocean Ave.,100 Revere St., 571 Revere St., 8 Revere St., 451 Revere Beach Blvd., 459 Revere Beach Blvd., 37 Revere Beach Blvd., 133 Salem St.,163 Shirley Ave., 38 Walnut Ave. and 55 Walnut Ave.