AGAWAM — One morning, Colleen Strunk-Ackerley was driving down South Alhambra Circle with her 2-year-old daughter when a car swerved into her lane going the opposite direction. If she moved left, she said, the wrong-way driver might have done so, too. If she moved right, she would have slammed her daughter’s side of the car into her neighbor’s full driveway. Ultimately, she honked her horn and the driver swerved into the correct lane.
This is just one of several incidents she said she’s seen on that street.
“People have passed me on the road while I’m doing the speed limit to speed around me and get up Corey Street,” she told the City Council on May 20. “My neighbor’s dog slipped a leash and was almost smashed by a speeding car. I have been flipped off and screamed at doing the speed limit on my road.”
She asked the City Council to reduce South Alhambra Circle’s speed limit to 15 miles per hour, to install a sign and for the Police Department to explore more ways to ensure traffic safety on the street.
“I have known too many children who are names on parks or road races in honor of because a problem existed with traffic that no one was able to do anything about,” she said.
She later added, “I’m asking for this community to make a change to keep it the neighborhood I dreamed of raising my family in and not the site of a tragedy that became a nightmare.”
Councilors agreed that something needed to be done.
“I live where Corey meets Alhambra. She’s 100% right,” said Councilor Anthony Russo. “I see it every day, there. I really hope there is something done about that because I’ve almost been hit going home from work.”
Councilor Robert Rossi said there need to be traffic studies and traffic control measures on Alhambra Circle. As well, those kinds of areas need to be patrolled more, he said.
“Something really needs to be done before somebody gets hurt there,” he said.
Two days later, Mayor Christopher Johnson told Reminder Publishing that the town is collecting data on Alhambra Circle. The town has equipment, he said, that can record the amount of traffic and the speed of the vehicles, on any given street. The police and DPW will then determine the best next steps.
That could include anti-speeding signs, Johnson said, which sometimes work, although they blend into the background in drivers’ consciousness over time. Especially in egregious cases, he said, it could involve the officers pulling drivers over. Drivers will initially receive warnings, then tickets if the violations continue.
“I think it’s an effective process and we try to do the best we can to respond to any complaint,” he said.
Options do not include reducing the speed limit, he said.
“If they are violating it now, what makes you think they’re not going to violate it if you reduce it?” he said.
Johnson pointed to a complaint the town received about Pine Street. Public Works Superintendent Mario Mazza said, under former Mayor William Sapelli, speed detection signs were installed by Spruce Circle and the Connecticut line.
“We’ve had some success with that,” he said. “Those have some usefulness in controlling speed.”
The City Council, Johnson said, also approved a reduced speed zone on Mill Street by Agawam High School, and installed signs earlier this year that flash at certain hours to reduce the speed limit.
Johnson also mentioned upgrades to the intersection of Suffield and Silver streets, which he said should be completed in a few months. Mazza said the work involves paving; stripping; and installing Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant pedestrian ramps, pedestrian crossing poles with buttons to stop traffic, and a “video detection” system that uses cameras to change the traffic lights.
To request traffic controls on a street, Johnson said residents can reach out to the Police Department’s traffic bureau at 413-786-4767. People can also contact the mayor’s office at 413-786-0400, ext. 8200, or through a form on the town website.
