Scary Wellesley intersection — for pedestrians

A reader wrote to us asking if anything is being done by the town to further safeguard drivers and pedestrians at the Linden Street/Weston Road intersection, which includes crosswalks, a stop sign and blinking red or yellow lights. His note reads in part:

“It seems that the word ‘stop’ along with a flashing red light still mean that a person turning right can go without coming to a true stop.  The percentage of cars that ‘roll’ through that sign/light is quite high.  It is also interesting to note that some drivers still do not like to stop even when the red light is constant.  It would be terrific to see a study done and to determine what could be done to ensure that cars do stop, that drivers look left and right (very few do see if any pedestrian is crossing the street), and that stop lights are obeyed.  I would suspect that this corner is not the only one in Wellesley where people ignore stop signs and rarely look right after ensuring no traffic is on its way from the left.”

We asked the Wellesley Police Department whether they’ve been paying any special attention to the intersection and were told that “Officers do conduct enforcement at the intersection of Linden Street/Weston Road for crosswalk violations and stop sign violations.  We have many areas in town that residents have concerns about and this is one of them that we assign to officers for enforcement on a regular basis.  The police department handles the enforcement end of any traffic concerns in the town.  If there is a request for a change in signage or speed limits etc., that is handled by the Selectmen’s office, but we work closely with them on these issues.”

According to the latest crash reports on the Wellesley Police Department website, there haven’t been too many incidents reported at the intersection of late, although there was a crash/no injuries in November.