Wellesley Police Lt. Scott Showstead of the town’s traffic committee made his second presentation this month to the Select Board regarding possible new designs for crosswalks in rough shape at Church Street and Washington Street that could eventually find their way onto other crosswalks around town down the road.
The particular crosswalks at Church/Washington are in such bad condition that they’re noisy when vehicles bump over them, and neighbors have complained. Rather than just replacing the crosswalks with the same brick materials and design, the town is looking to use them as a sort of experiment for designs that could be used in other parts of town, including under the Wellesley Square streetscape redesign program that Town Meeting just approved a boatload of spending on.
(The crosswalk in question is nearby the notorious ghost crosswalk between the Belclare and Smith & Wollensky—a botched job on a temporary crosswalk during building construction has left the shadow of a crosswalk that can tempt pedestrians and confuse drivers.)
Select Board members have even made field trips to other communities, including Westwood, to check out their crosswalk designs and materials, some of which are applied right on top of the asphalt as opposed to cobbling together different materials like brick and granite that can separate and leave gaps.
The board discussed the issue for an hour at its April 9 meeting (see Wellesley Media recording), then devoted about another half hour on April 30.
There was some discussion about sticking with brick, as long as it wasn’t crummy replica brick, to stay consistent with Wellesley’s look. Though some on the board felt it was better to get a little wild since the change at this particular intersection could be temporary anyway, and see what the public and local businesses think. “Piloting something different is what’s going to get a response from the public,” Board Chair Tom Ulfelder said during the April 30 meeting (see Wellesley Media recording).
The board opted for a white and gray pattern with circles on it (Babson College has had green and white crosswalks with circles in the pattern).
There’s no exact timeline for the project yet, but it will likely take place this spring. A custom stencil for the crosswalks must be made. Removal of the existing crosswalk material would take place over a few nights. (Update 8/26/24: No night work will take place.)
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I agree that “cobbling together different materials” is a bad idea because of the maintenance costs and noise issues. But the danger in “keeping it simple” as others have suggested is that drivers might not recognize there’s a crosswalk there at all. Meanwhile, “distracting” and “confusing” crosswalks tend to make streets safer by forcing drivers to pay attention where there are potential points of conflict. This is an empirical finding: https://web.archive.org/web/20230610210856/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/08/crosswalk-art-safety-bloomberg/.
I’m not saying we need to paint a mural on every crosswalk in Wellesley, but the stencil design is better than the traditional “white ladder” pattern in my opinion.
Let’s keep this project simple….Just use old fashioned green paint with reflective white outlines. Saves money and time for the town and HELLO? We have snow…damage from plows….frozen ground…salt and other chemicals. Not to mention we can avoid a law suit from someone tripping over damaged or missing bricks …. I can’t believe the board took wasteful time to travel to other towns to look at their crosswalks. No need to be fancy with our crosswalks. Keep it simple Wellesley
We went through a major renovation for brick detail in crosswalks and sidewalks 25 years ago throughout much of the town. It looked so nice. Then weeds came up in the between the bricks and weren’t maintained, snow plows damaged the crosswalks, and it seemed like only a few years later everything was dug up and concrete or asphalt replacing everything. I missed hearing what happened with that project, was it poorly done? Did we have to swallow all that exoense? And what would we do to ensure this project is better?
Agree with many comments above.
Not all drivers in town are aware or familiar with where crosswalks are located. In the Square crosswalks can start between parking spots (like near Truly’s on Grove St). Drivers cannot see people/kids begin to cross because of the parked cars.
Flashing lights/audible sounds (or both) should be considered in high volume spots.
Witnessed too many close calls.
People many times don’t stop for people on crosswalks anyway in Wellesley. These should not be confusing artistic paintings that can distract drivers or even have the driver think it’s road artwork rather than a crosswalk. Keep it simple please! Just use regular white paint and re paint it every year. Not that complicated!
When is the Town of Wellesley going to install audible walk indicators/accessible pedestrian signals for our fellow blind/visually impaired Residents? There has been a request for such from a blind Resident that wishes to remain independent. For example, crossing the 4-way intersection over by Whole Foods/Needham Bank is perilous if you can not see the signals. It’s terrifying for the bind to cross such an intersection on a wing and a prayer.
I love the stencil design. It would be so much better than the dangerous faux brick crosswalks at Fiorella crossing over to Belclare which I cross almost daily. As I pick my way across hoping not to break an ankle.
Slow the cars down before they hit the crosswalk.