Neighbors oppose Boston Street CVS plan

LYNN – A CVS pharmacy slated to open on Boston Street this fall comes with traffic signal improvements praised by city officials but unwelcome by at least one business owner on the busy commercial road.Toomey?s Cleaners owner Robert Kaminski said installing traffic signals at Boston and Ford streets will increase traffic backups on Boston Street with its driveways and fast food drive-thru lanes, sending frustrated drivers seeking shortcuts onto North Bend Street.?Forget the Indy 500; this will be the Lynn 500,” Kaminski said.But developer James Mitchell called criticisms of the signal “a narrow view” and said city officials previously considered adding signals at Boston and Ford.In the year it has taken Tropic Star Development to shepherd the CVS project through city approval boards, the New Hampshire-based developer and City Council members hammered out a plan to have Tropic Star install the signals at its own expense and improve signal timings at Western Avenue and Franklin Street, Boston and Franklin, Washington Street and Western, and Boston and Washington.?It?s a big benefit we?re giving the city,” Mitchell said. City Councilor at large Brendan Crighton agreed and said Boston Street signal improvements are overdue.?Drive down there any time of day and you will realize how bad the signals are,” Crighton told his colleagues during the March 4 council meeting.Inspectional Services Director Michael Donovan estimated the Boston and Ford intersection work and the improvements at the other four intersections will cost Tropic Star almost $400,000. The work is overdue, he said, pointing to accident statistics underscoring the risk of taking a left turn from Ford onto Boston.Although Tropic Star is paying for the signal work, the city is taking responsibility for maintaining the new and improved signals. Toomey?s has been on Boston Street for 58 years and Kaminski takes a dim view of the city?s ability to keep the street?s traffic signals functioning and maintained.?Those have been out of synch from Day One,” he said.Donovan said the city pays a contractor to maintain signals but said maintenance is no substitute for replacing traffic signals with new machinery. He said the city started signal installation at Boston and Ford in 2002 but only managed to install conduit before running out of money.?We knew we needed a signal there,” he said.Kaminski is not the only merchant claiming Ford Street signals will have a negative impact on Boston Street traffic. Mahan?s Hardware and Automotive owner Chris Mahan said North Bend, a short street paralleling Pine Grove Cemetery and Boston Street, has for years served the street?s few residents, cemetery goers and delivery trucks servicing Boston Street businesses.?The main worry is human nature, being what it is, people are going to look for a shortcut,” Mahan said.Another Boston Street businessman, Dunkin? Donuts franchise owner John Mello, challenged signal plans in Superior Court a year ago. Samuel Vitali, Mello?s Lynn attorney, said a Ford Street traffic signal upsets the precise timing Boston Street Dunkin?s employees use to service drive-thru customers.?It?s got a ripple effect,” Vitali said.In hopes of blocking the signal work, Vitali said Mello anchored his court challenge on a January 2013 Zoning Board of Appeals decision allowing Tropic Star to provide CVS with parking spaces measuring 9 feet by 18 feet.Mello asked the court to make Tropic Star follow city?s rules requiring parking spaces measuring 8 feet by 20 feet. But that argument – in city Assistant Solicitor James Lamanna?s words – is now “moot” because councilors moved this month to change the city definition for a parking space to 9 feet by 18 feet even as they took steps to approve improved signals on Boston Street.Lamanna acknowledged Mello?s traffic concerns, but Vitali admitted his client?s court challenge has disappeared.?He is going to have to find another solution,” Vitali said.Mitchell said the 12,900-square-foot CVS s