Marblehead board meets on Y traffic

MARBLEHEAD – Selectman William Woodfin has started sharing information with Salem Ward 7 Councilor Joseph O’Keefe to insure that the Marblehead-Salem YMCA “progresses in an appropriate manner.”Woodfin told his fellow selectmen Wednesday evening that Town Administrator Tony Sasso will attend the next Salem public meeting on the Lynch/van Otterloo YMCA, “to carry the wishes of this board.””We’ve opened up a dialogue,” he said. Woodfin and Selectman Harry Christensen will participate in the ongoing discussion of traffic and safety issues at the new YMCA on Leggs Hill.They volunteered in response to a letter from a “Y” neighbor expressing concern about whether several house lots on Leggs Hill Road will be used for parking, playing fields or homes that will buffer the “Y” from the neighborhood.The neighbor also wants the “Y” to come up with money for landscapingMeanwhile a consulting firm, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., presented a new traffic study to the Planning Board Tuesday evening, covering the first week of May. The traffic study was ordered by the Planning Board in response to an outpouring of complaints from the neighbors. The “Y” paid for the study.An estimated six dozen neighbors who attended the meeting heard the consultant report that traffic along the Marblehead neighborhood streets has increased by nearly 4,000 cars – but federal guidelines say that isn’t enough to justify signal lights, nor is it heavy enough to install a four-way stop at the “Y” entrance.Drivers did not even appear to significantly violate the speed limit and Planning Board Chairman Phil Helmes said the town can’t require a new Loring Avenue entrance to the “Y,” because the property is across the town line in Salem.Kalihiri listed a number of ways to slow the traffic, including speed bumps, sharper corners, raised crosswalks, signs, on-street parking, narrowing the street in front of the “Y” entrance and installing islands in the center of the road. The Planning Board is scheduled to vote on those at a future meeting.