State to study safety, speeding in Revere rotary

REVERE – State highway officials have agreed to a city request to conduct a traffic safety study in Brown Circle, the site of several tanker truck accidents.Mayor Thomas Ambrosino requested the study in May and Highway Department District Director Patricia Leavenworth approved it with an initial focus on speeding enforcement. Eight tanker accidents, including one this year, spilled fuel across the rotary joining Broadway, Route 107 and Squire Road.”We want them to check the roadway to make sure the lanes approaching the circle are properly graded. We’re fortunate we haven’t had a major catastrophe,” City Councilor at Large Robert Haas said.Most of the crashes have been blamed on driver error with drivers seeking to get paid for making speedy deliveries traveling too fast into the rotary. The accidents have occurred perilously close to two service stations located on the rotary’s perimeter. Leavenworth did not indicate in a letter to Ambrosino when the “road safety audit” will be conducted but said the city will participate in the review.Councilors and state legislators have recommended a variety of approaches to ending rotary accidents including increased speed limit enforcement and signs warning trucks along the approaches to the rotary about dangers their loads could face in the roundabout.Ward 6 Councilor Charles Patch wants to see the rotary torn up and replaced with elevated overpass lanes similar to a proposal over the next 10 years for reconfiguring Copeland Circle as part of the reconstruction of Route 1 through North Revere and Saugus.Other proposals include converting Brown Circle and other local rotaries into signalized intersections. Haas said the cost of all these changes must be weighed against the potential for loss of life or an environmental disaster caused by thousands of gallons of fuel flowing into marshland bordering Route 107.”Enough is enough,” he said.Although construction of the North Revere fire station two years ago improved Fire Department response time to Squire Road and North Revere, Fire Chief Eugene Doherty said the department needs a fire retardant foam truck ready to rapidly respond to fuel spills.