Revere school board boosting Rumney crossing safety

REVERE – School Committee members hope a sign urging drivers to slow down during their morning commute along American Legion Highway will reduce the chance of students being struck as they cut across the busy highway on the way to Rumney Marsh Academy.Committee member Ann Rapone and her colleagues voted June 19 to ask state highway officials to install the sign in the wake of a May 7 Daily Item report detailing how middle school students walk up Floyd or Tuttle streets to the highway then cut across its four lanes during rush hour traffic.A student was struck by a vehicle but not seriously injured while crossing in 2008 and school officials and committee members have proposed placing a fence on the highway median in addition to the sign.Installing a fence requires state Highway Department permission and, to date, the only safety improvement study approved by state officials involves reviewing ways to end tanker truck rollovers in Brown Circle, located on the Broadway and Route 107 end of the highway.Eight tanker accidents, including one this year, spilled fuel across the rotary joining Broadway, Route 107 and Squire Road.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.Mayor Thomas Ambrosino in May requested the Brown Circle safety study and Highway Department District Director Patricia Leavenworth approved it with an initial focus on speeding enforcement.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 other solutions for 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. City Councilor Robert 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.Fire Chief Eugene Doherty said the department needs a fire retardant foam truck ready to rapidly respond to fuel spills.