Above: SAM’s video explains what the new driveways allow access to and for who. (image cropped from video)
The Public Safety Building Committee asked me to help get the word out about dos and don’ts for egress to the facility, the golf course behind it, and the school next to it. The committee worked with Southborough Access Media to produce a video explanation.
The video’s main message is – parents shouldn’t follow the school buses to get to Woodward.* Access to Woodward school has only changed for the bus drivers. Parents and teachers will use the original driveway in front of the school (closer to Route 30.)
Facing the public safety building, the driveway to the left is for use by the school buses and visitors to either the golf course or the new building. (Although, the building isn’t open to the public just yet.)
The buses will head to a gated path for their entrance only to Woodward. (After picking up or dropping off the kids, they will then exit through the school’s main driveway.)
You can watch SAM’s explanation with more detail here:
*I know it’s a little late to share that news. The committee chair sent me an email on Monday night. Unfortunately, I was tied up yesterday and this morning, and unable to write this post until now.
From Rt. 85, it appears as though there is a “divided highway,” complete with median strip in front of the new public-safety complex. It looks like the road to the right of the median is for entrance into the complex and the other is for exiting the complex onto Rt. 85. No driver would likely think otherwise. Beth’s piece points out that this, unfortunately, is not the case. The very fact that this needs explaining, complete with an accompanying video, is clear evidence that we’re dealing with an astonishingly bad, inept roadway design.
Have you been to the transfer station?
Figuring that out is the first step to understanding the higher level thinking you describe at the PBSC.
I would never had know that each of the driveways are actually two separate driveways that both have a two way lane to them if it weren’t for this video. Even while I was watching the video, I was confused. I have been driving for 43 years and have never encountered a setup such as this. This is worse than the confusing layout of the parking lot at the post office.
Couldn’t agree more with the previous comments that any driver would intuitively interpret the roads as a divided highway – in on the right, out on the left. In addition, why on earth would you intentionally create a road specifically for emergency vehicle egress to include a tight, twisting turn with high curbs? This only serves to slow down the vehicles’ ability to negotiate the road. In the video, both the police and fire vehicles had to take up the full width of the road just to negotiate the exit, potentially into oncoming traffic entering the PSB. Couple that with the stand of trees currently still at the exit, which eliminates virtually all visibility for both the exiting emergency vehicles and traffic on Route 85, and you pretty much have a complete disaster of an intersection.
omg, what have we created? so complicated, everything and everywhere.
It’s a brand new property. Residents will get use to it.
I’m sure there will be a lot of signs explaining the dual driveways. They’re not present yet, so of course it looks like a boulevard, but not everything is finished, either. Patience!
Forrest Gump sure had it right!
Think of all the entrances with islands you’ve encountered – most have KEEP RIGHT signs posted on them advising drivers to keep to the right – as is intuitively done just about everywhere else.
Not in Southborough, though!
Nope!
We’re SO BRIGHT we’ve created a COUNTERINTUITIVE situation with side-by-side ingress/egress points, with 90+% of the traffic directed to COUNTER INTUITIVELY keep to the left.
Brilliant!
Too bad when the plans were reviewed for the building (apparently) nobody thought to realize the garages should be on the other end of the building!!!
The word FUBAR is appropriate for this situation!
Unbelievable…
HINT: put up the ‘handsome’ DO NOT ENTER signs BEFORE opening the facility…
Forrest Gump is spinning in his grave…
Yeah, that tiny-print “Authorized Vehicles Only” sign that I saw today on the island is completely inadequate, as well as ambiguous as to which driveway it refers to. My faith in improvements may have been misplaced.