Councillor Rizzo Seeks Traffic Officers for Busy North Shore Road Intersection

The City Council approved a motion by Councillor-at-Large Dan Rizzo that Mayor Brian Arrigo instruct the chief of police to assign officers at the intersection of North Shore Road and Revere Street during peak hours of traffic.

Rizzo said he has personally experienced the traffic backups on Revere Street and Route 1A.

“Over the weekend coming down 1A, the traffic was backed up to the Wharf Restaurant,” he said. “We should be utilizing traffic enforcement pulling traffic at peak hours. Get some police officers out there whether it’s in conjunction with the State Police or the Revere Police Department.

“We need to have more than just the lighting doing a regular cycle,” said Rizzo. “We need to utilize manpower to pull that traffic because people are getting extremely frustrated waiting.”

Rizzo said there are problems with heavy, vehicular traffic across the city.

“The city right now is in gridlock,” said the councillor. “This city is in gridlock almost all day long with the exception of a few hours in the middle of the day.”

Ward 5 Councillor John Powers said he has be in touch with MassDOT officials about the traffic situation.

“The explanation that I received is that they are going to put in some wooden poles that they can put the lights on – they would expect to have the lights on early next week,” said Powers.

Eric Lampedecchio of Taft Avenue thanked Councillor Rizzo for presenting his motion.

“It’s an absolutely safety hazard on North Shore Road,” said Lampedecchio. “A lot of people are disregarding the cones and taking that left in to the oncoming two lanes of traffic. It’s only a matter of time until somebody gets hurt. MassDOT has been extremely slow to respond to this. It’s been over five weeks since residents could take a left on to Mills Avenue.”

“I’m tired of hearing that traffic is a regional issue and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Lampedecchio. “I think manually adjusting the traffic lights during peak hours is a great idea. We see on Route 1A northbound in East Boston a police officer controlling the lights in Orient Heights. I’d like to see something like that on Revere Street.”

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