Engineer: Left Turns Won't Impact Pedestrian Safety

Dedham Board of Selectmen voted unanimously Thursday to re-instate left-hand turns from High Street onto Washington Street as part of the Dedham Square Improvement Project.

The vote comes after traffic engineers from the BETA Group of Norwood told the board that there wouldn’t be a difference in the level of safety for pedestrians.

“They are both safe. You can’t just make an overarching statement that exclusive is safer than concurrent. They each have their own characteristics that you have to evaluate at each intersection,” said Jason DeGray, of BETA. “The national standard is concurrent pedestrian phase.”

Selectman Paul Reynolds abstained from the vote as he awaits direction from the state’s ethics commission on whether he should take votes about the project because of his involvement with The Blue Bunny.

Selectmen where debating no left turns with an exclusive pedestrian phase or left turns with concurrent pedestrian phase.

“We are not compromising safety by allowing the left-hand turns, by allowing the concurrent pedestrian cycle,” said chairman Jim MacDonald.

MacDonald has said – and BETA engineers reiterated Thursday – that the town could go back after the project is completed and evaluate the system, and because it isn’t a physical change, the left-hand turn and pedestrian phase issues could be easily changed.

“We have the experience of doing projects and making change […] we have the control,” MacDonald said. “This board takes full responsibility for what’s going to happen. We are the ones that are accountable. We don’t have to go in [Boston].”

Selectmen Michael Butler made another presentation the project that answered questions he said have come up in the past few weeks surrounding the project.

Butler went back over the timeline of the project and highlighted that public meetings have been held since 2008. Dave Field, the town engineer, researched and found 25 public and posted meetings on the Square Improvement Project and 78 internal meetings.

“There has been plenty and ample time for people to express their opinions,” said selectman Carmen Dello Iacono. “It has been out there.”