How Many Cars Can Ledgelawn Take?
How Many Cars Can Ledgelawn Take?
Council Talks Traffic Calming After Downtown Detours and Traffic Worry Some Residents
BAR HARBOR—Worried about the traffic downtown and especially on Ledgelawn? You aren’t the only one.
Pedestrian safety has come to the front at multiple town meetings in just two days in Bar Harbor. First, on Monday, Conners Emerson School Committee members worried about crosswalks not yet being repainted and increased traffic both on Ledgelawn Avenue and the corridor from the school to the Jesup Memorial Library, MDI YMCA, and Park Street fields.
Then, on Tuesday, the Bar Harbor Town Council listened to a report specifically about traffic calming on Ledgelawn Ave, a residential road that runs from Mount Desert Street to Crowmwell Harbor Road. Due to multiple detours because of construction on lower Main Street for the town’s public works infrastructure upgrades, and at upper School Street where the Jesup Memorial Library is expanding, there has been an increase in traffic on the avenue.
Conners Emerson School Committee Vice Chair Marie Yarborough said that the police counted 59,000 vehicles traveling on the road during just one month this winter. There haven’t been updated counts this spring.
Last week, the town placed four pedestrian-crossing cones at the intersections of Ledgelawn Avenue and Park Street in a measure to help keep people from running the stop sign at Ledgelawn and Park.
“I live on Ledgelawn. Let me tell you, it’s like a speedway. I mean, I hear it and they aren’t going 25 mph. They’re going 30 miles. They’re going 40 and 50,” one unidentified Ledgelawn resident told the councilors, Tuesday. “I cannot tell you how many times I see them going past the stop sign and kids cross that street. When they get off that bus a lot of them go to the field…. There’s got to be a way to monitor these people because they are crazy.”
Police ran several details in the last two weeks, focusing on the stop signs, giving warnings to those who they caught rolling through it or failing to stop. Captain Chris Wharff told councilors that the department began working on the issue this winter. They had some assistance. Ledgelawn home owners allowed the department to plug message board trailers into their homes.
Since January, Wharff said, the police have stopped 150 vehicles for violations on just Ledgelawn Ave and Cromwell Harbor Road, the detour route to the Jackson Laboratories (JAX) and further toward Otter Creek and Mount Desert.
“The vast majority of issues are traffic volume issues and stop sign issues,” Wharff said.
Additional solutions as tourist traffic increases involve potentially rerouting traffic to Sand Beach and close by park sites further down Mount Desert Island. This requires help from Acadia National Park, which has already spoken of the issue on its website, and actually determining those routes, said Town Manager James Smith and Council Chair Valerie Peacock.
That alert on the park’s page is among many and states, “Follow Signs to Sand Beach Due to Construction Closures.
“Some roads in downtown Bar Harbor will be closed for construction through the summer. Visitors should access Sand Beach by following the signs from the park’s Cadillac Mountain entrance on State Route 233 (Eagle Lake Road) in Bar Harbor.”
“I drive down that street all the time. While it certainly is worse because of the volume because of the detour,” Councilor Matthew Hochman said he often jokes that the police department could earn a lot of money ticketing people who fail to stop at the signs along lower Ledgelawn. “People do blow through those signs a lot.” He said he appreciated the police department being proactive. “There are people who just, at speed, drive right through.”
Councilor Kyle Shank asked if the upcoming crosswalk line painting is for the whole town or just Ledgelawn. Public Works Director Bethany Leavitt said the lines should be repainted, starting next week, but it could be advanced depending on weather. The town contracts with a company to do that painting.
Shank asked when the School Street closures for the Jesup Memorial Library construction starts. Wharff said it has been happening throughout the spring on a day-by-day basis.
“It’s only going to exacerbate what’s happening on Ledgelawn,” Shank said.
“We are monitoring it. We’re trying to be very proactive with it,” Smith said. “We understand your concerns and we share them.”
“Summer’s coming and there’s going to be a lot of traffic going down the street,” Peacock said. She said it is not an ideal situation.
The impact to other roads in that same portion of Bar Harbor, many of which are closed on one end or also having increased traffic volume was not discussed.
Alexandra Simis, school committee chair, said at the council meeting that the town needs to provide safety tools to help both pedestrians and cars. Painting the crosswalks sooner rather than later. “Please make our kids’ safety on your roadways, your top priority.”
Note:
Last night and yesterday there were multiple important topics and meetings that require separate stories.
Because we don’t want to overwhelm your inbox with eight stories in one day, we’re going to spread these stories out a bit.
But, in brief, voters in Mount Desert soundly rejected a short-term rental/vacation rental ordinance, Bar Harbor’s Higgins Pit is still not a go, and just the proposal for moving the cruise ship ordinance and related matters to public hearings created well over an hour of discussion at the tail end of the Bar Harbor Town Council’s approximately five-hour-long meeting.
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Please please someone consider putting in temporary (or permanent) traffic speed bumps on Ledgelawn. I live here and the traffic has become a nightmare. I would happily put up with speed bumps.