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Cranston council greenlights ‘local traffic only’ designation for Chiswick Road after resident pleas
Summary
Residents urged the council to designate Chiswick Road as local-traffic-only after city traffic studies showed heavy cut-through volumes; council approved ordinance referral and staff will add signage and ask navigation apps to stop routing through the street.
Cranston City Council voted Feb. 17 to advance an ordinance to designate Chiswick Road as local-traffic-only after residents and the ordinance sponsor described repeated cut-through traffic and safety hazards.
Kevin Essington, a Chiswick Road resident, told the council the narrow street is home to 20 families, including school-age children and older adults, and said the city’s traffic studies from 2020, 2022 and 2024 showed volumes “up to nearly 1,100 cars per day.” He added that navigation apps regularly route out-of-state drivers and delivery trucks through the 28-foot-wide street, creating “a tragedy waiting to happen.”
Councilwoman Consuelo Graziano, who introduced the ordinance, said the traffic engineer reviewed the file and recommended local-access-only signage as the best immediate remedy short of physical measures such as speed bumps or one-way conversions. Director Renzulli told the council the traffic engineer had reached out to Google and Waze and that the city could request routing changes and install signs on Broad Street and Narragansett Boulevard.
Council members emphasized enforcement and the possibility of traffic displacement onto neighboring streets. Director Renzulli cautioned that listing Chiswick as private or local-access-only in third-party navigation systems may take administrative approval and that the change could push some traffic onto nearby roads, requiring further monitoring.
The council approved moving the ordinance forward; staff will coordinate signage, app-notification requests, and follow up with the council on implementation and any unintended traffic shifts.
