By Adam Swift
Several city councillors and residents raised concerns about proposed traffic changes at the intersection of Harris Street and Route 16 that are scheduled to go into effect this Saturday.
On the afternoon of Saturday, Dec. 6, Harris Street will become a one-way road northbound from Winthrop Avenue to Sewall Street and two left turn lanes will be added to Revere Beach Parkway Southbound, and one right turn will be added to Revere Beach Parkway Northbound. A right turn slip lane from Route 16 to Harris Street will be added.
At Monday night’s city council meeting, Housing and Community Development Director Tom Skwierawski outlined the plans for the traffic change, as well as the data collection that will take place through the first 90 days of the implementation and the proposed longer-term changes at Bell Circle.
These changes are intended to improve traffic operations at the intersection and will remove 1,500 to 2,000 regional cars from cutting through Harris Street to avoid Route 16, according to Skwierawski.
The proposed changes to the Harris Street intersection go back more than a half dozen years as part of the off-site mitigation related to the Suffolk Downs development, he said.
“There’s been a lot of time and effort, prior to my time in the city, in which this was identified as a key area of concern,” said Skwierawski. “Then it was reinforced as Suffolk Downs began design; we worked on this as one of the first off-site mitigation projects. We had a series of meetings in 2023 and 2024 where we looked at different iterations of how this intersection configuration would work.”
On Feb. 15 of last year, Skwierawski said the traffic commission ultimately decided on the design scheduled to go into effect on Saturday.
“Due to the conversion of Harris Street to one-way in that first segment of the road, this intersection will go from a five-leg to a four-leg intersection,” he said. “Not only is it less complicated and safer for cars and pedestrians, it also reduces the wait times at that intersection, because you don’t have to wait through five phases, you are only going through four. The ultimate end result of this is a more efficient traffic operation at that intersection; additional left-hand and right-hand turns getting on to Winthrop Ave. from Rte. 16, and most importantly for our purposes … there is this big goal of removing a lot of regional cut-through traffic from going down Harris Street.”
At the traffic commission in February of 2024, the city proposed a phased improvement approach, starting with a 90-day data monitoring period, where there will be a two-way operation on Sewall Street to Bixby with no parking on either side. The balance of Harris Street will remain two-way, except for the first block from the intersection to Sewall Street.
“After this 90-day period, we can take a look at the data and we can see if we need to tweak any of these things, whether Sewall Street converting back to one-way in that segment, or some or all of Harris Street becoming one-way or remaining in its current operations,” said Skwierawski.
Suffolk Downs developer HYM is committed to supporting the date collection over the 90-day period, he added.
In addition, Skwierwaski said the city is looking at a future $7-million improvement project for Bell Circle, but he said that full project is likely several years down the road, as it is dependent on the Suffolk Downs project hitting certain development milestones.
However, in the spring, there could be the addition of a slip lane at Bell Circle to help address some of the Beach Street traffic.
As the city prepares for the Dec. 6 launch of the Harris Street, Skwierawski said there has been a lot of interagency coordination.
“We’re working with MassDOT, of course this is their roadway, working with National Grid, working with gas and electric, and working with various city departments to make sure that folks are well aware of the changes that are about to take place,” he said.
In addition, the city is beginning social media outreach about the changes and has distributed flyers in the neighborhood, and is working on temporary signage related to the traffic changes.
Ward 1 Councillor Joanne McKenna expressed her displeasure at what she said was a lack of communication with the council and the neighbors.
“Two years ago, we sat in front of the traffic commission meeting, and a bunch of residents came from the neighborhood and they were concerned about what was going to happen to their quiet, nice neighborhood,” said McKenna. “They were going to get inundated with cars, trucks … and we were promised we would have a community meeting, a couple of them, and we haven’t had anything. I’m just so upset about the lack of communication, and it doesn’t happen here with you, it happens all the time in the city.
“This isn’t just a renovation to a street, it is a whole neighborhood that is going to be inundated with cars.”
McKenna said she has heard numerous concerns from residents in the neighborhood, and added that while it would get cars off Harris Street, the concern was that the traffic would end up on other streets in the neighborhood.
Ward 3 Councillor Anthony Cogliandro said he was also unhappy that the council was only finding out about the implementation date for the traffic changes several days before they were scheduled to go into effect.
“I know a lot of work has gone into this, but just to touch on the traffic commission meeting, the neighborhood has spoken against this, we have spoken against this,” he said.
Councillor-at-Large Michelle Kelley suggested that the city hold off on the Harris Street traffic changes in order to collect more data about the current traffic patterns and to provide more time to get out the word about the changes.
“This did come from the 2-½-plus years of the permitting work and the development advisory committee that highlighted this as a potential issue,” said Skwierawski. “There are people that are concerned, and I would piggyback off of what Councillor McKenna said, and I’ll just state this unequivocally, the intent of this is not to bring more people into the neighborhood, it is to bring less people into the neighborhood. We are collecting data on Sewall Street, we are collecting data on Beach Street, and if the data is sending us in a different direction or telling us that we are not accomplishing that goal, we can pivot and adapt as needed … because that is not the intent of this project.
“We are doing this to bring regional traffic off of local roads, and if things are not working that way, we are going to adjust.”
