City Councilor Mary Ellen Daly O’Brien.
The Haverhill city council Tuesday approved a request to have a traffic study on speeding issues and whether to reverse a one-way traffic pattern for Merrill Avenue in the North Parish section of the city.
Councilor Mary Ellen Daly O’Brien, who grew up in the neighborhood, motioned for the study. She said Merrill Avenue residents seem to be upset about speed and other traffic issues and it may be time to reconsider the southbound one-way pattern from upper Main Street to Rosemont Street.
“At the time, and I don’t even know how many years ago it was, it must be 25 plus years ago they made it one-way. It was done because they didn’t want to widen the road. They had just finished a project of widening Rosemont and they didn’t want to widen Merrill. I think that maybe we should look at reversing that one-way so it would allow traffic to get into New Hampshire and (maybe) make that bottleneck on Main Street a little bit better. It could be helpful in alleviating the traffic we see on Main Street from 495 onward,” Daly O’Brien said.
According to Daly O’Brien, Haverhill police will conduct speed monitoring on Merrill Avenue.
Among other reasons Merrill Avenue became a one-way street was to improve safety for westbound motorists on Rosemont Street who were faced with vehicles crossing onto Merrill Avenue at a blind curve.
For Gods sake make it 2 ways. I travel this frequently and no one speeds. Another “study”????