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Counts on Exeter Road show 85th-percentile speeds near 33 mph; board refers enforcement and files item
Summary
A resident request for traffic calming on Exeter Road followed covert counts showing 85th-percentile speeds of about 32'to'3 mph and roughly 300 vehicles per day per direction. The board declined physical calming devices (town policy) and voted to receive and file, referring enforcement to police.
The Amherst Traffic Safety Board reviewed a resident petition for traffic calming on Exeter Road on Aug. 5 after engineering deployed a covert speed counter. Chris Schreigel reported an 85th-percentile speed of 33 mph northbound and 32 mph southbound at the monitoring location (Pole 59) with about 300 vehicles per day in each direction.
Resident Anna Sweda described a June crash near the Andover intersection that totaled a vehicle and said she regularly sees teenagers and families using sidewalks. "I just...I mean, if they say we're not— they're not speeding as aggressively as it feels, I mean, that that's what it is," she said, adding that she observed police monitoring briefly after the incident. Chris said the six-year crash analysis showed two crashes on Exeter at the Andover intersection that were unrelated to speed.
Board members discussed non-physical strategies—encouraging parking on both sides to calm traffic, police enforcement and improved signage. The town currently does not support speed bumps, speed tables, or similar vertical traffic-calming devices on local roads; the board voted to receive and file the item and asked the police department to consider targeted enforcement.
What happens next: engineering will keep the record and the board asked police to monitor the corridor; the board suggested resident outreach about parking patterns as a low-impact traffic-calming measure.
