Big Box traffic snarls Salem meeting focus

SALEM – The development group hoping to build a new Lowe’s Home Improvement Center on the Lynn-Salem line presented a traffic study to the Salem Planning Board Thursday night that they said would reduce the volume of cars on Highland Avenue by one vehicle.A crowd of Lynn and Salem residents concerned about the project’s impact on their neighborhood packed Salem City Hall Annex and waited patiently for two hours while the board heard final details on a plan to tear down St. Joseph Church on Lafayette Street to make way for a housing complex.The neighbors shared the crowded hallway with out-of-work union construction workers who came because they heard Kennedy Development Group plans to use out-of-state non-union workers to build the project.Joseph Correnti, the lawyer representing the Kennedy Group, told the board that project planners have been busy addressing several project issues including drainage, but they were there last night to answer questions that have been raised about traffic. Highland Avenue is already known as a local hot spot for traffic which bogs the roadway down during peak hours.In Lynn, there are two intersections that raised the heaviest concerns:u The first is the confluence of Western and Waitt avenues and Maple Street.A consultant for the Kennedy Group suggested that the traffic signal at that intersection was badly out of date and needs to be replaced and coordinated with other signals on the road.u The second Lynn-side intersection that traffic planners looked at was Western Avenue and Buchanan Circle.The proposed design calls for adding a two-way left-turn lane as a means of mitigating traffic and improving conditions for residents of Buchanan Circle.”Regardless of whether this project goes through or not, that’s something the city needs to consider,” the consultant for the group told the board and the audience.Because Highland Avenue is a state road, all improvements and changes to need to be approved by the state Department of Transportation.The Kennedy Group consultant also addressed potential improvements to two intersections on the Salem side of the proposed development, including the problematic crossroad at Marlborough Road. While the developer’s traffic study proposed widening the roadway in places, adding a possible U-turn and calibrating signals to keep traffic moving, there was no definitive answer on how much the improvements would reduce traffic.However, when pushed for a number or measure, the answer from the consultant was one vehicle.Correnti said there was more work to be done and both cities and MassDOT would need to be involved.”This is not a problem we caused, not a problem we could make worse,” he said. “We are trying to correct it.”