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Residents press commission for truck counts and calming study on Nixon and Parmenter roads
Summary
Longtime residents described narrow, historic road geometry, frequent heavy trucks, and repeated crashes on Nixon and Parmenter roads; the commission asked staff to gather truck data and continue the petition for discussion at the next meeting.
Joseph Simonelli, a Nixon Road resident and licensed civil engineer, told the commission that Nixon Road’s narrow, historic geometry and frequent truck traffic create a persistent safety hazard and repeated pavement damage.
Simonelli said the roadway predates motor vehicles and was never designed for the volumes and sizes of modern truck traffic. He and other speakers described truck drivers using GPS routing that brings heavy loads through Nixon, Edmonds and Grove streets, mounting lawns and creating wear on pavement that was repaved only six years ago. He told commissioners the 2014 Nixon Road report primarily recommended speed humps but that implementation has been inconsistent; he flagged impacts to agricultural operations and emergency response.
Staff said they had recent speed and volume data for Parmenter Road and that reinstallation of a missing 25 mph sign produced a small change in measured speeds (about +1 mph). The packet also included earlier consultant recommendations for additional chevrons and maintaining an overgrown curve-ahead sign, and staff noted the city can extract truck counts and vehicle-length data from recent automatic counts.
Commissioners and residents asked that staff break out the truck counts from existing data, that staff review the 2014 Nixon Road report and that the petition prepared and signed by abutters be heard when the petitioner can attend. The commission agreed to place the Parmenter/Nixon petition on the next month’s agenda and to provide truck-count breakout data to inform options such as targeted enforcement, signage changes or limited physical treatments.
No formal policy vote was taken; commissioners discussed the tradeoffs of speed humps versus emergency response impacts and noted budget and staffing constraints for enforcement and capital projects.
