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By State Rep. Mike Connolly

Over the past few weeks, my office has received numerous reports of intolerable, chaotic traffic conditions on weekday mornings at the intersections of Broadway and McGrath Highway, as well as Pearl and McGrath Highway and other nearby locations. In response, I reached out to the Massachusetts State Police and requested a police detail to help ensure drivers do not continue to block these major intersections.

The State Police agreed to deploy a temporary traffic detail operation; two state troopers began performing morning detail duty on Friday, September 20. The State Police advised that they wrote a total of 42 tickets during that first detail operation. The State Police further advised that they had troopers on duty all last week, and they plan to have troopers on duty during the first week of October as well.

State Police officers stepped in last month to assist in regulating traffic in the troubled McGrath Highway areas in Somerville.

I am now in conversations with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) and other state and city colleagues about additional measures, such as “Don’t Block The Box” pavement markings and “Don’t Block The Box” signage to help make expectations more clear to automobile drivers, particularly the many automobile drivers from out of town who use our city as a pass-through to get to Cambridge and Boston.

On Monday, September 23, I spent about an hour at the intersection of Broadway and McGrath Highway, just to observe the traffic conditions and the police response. I witnessed two troopers doing everything they could to keep the intersection clear, pulling over waves of automobile drivers who were ignoring the traffic signals and blocking the crosswalk. Keeping these crosswalks clear is particularly important for children and families who are trying to get to the East Somerville Community School and the Capuano Early Childhood Center.

While on location last week, the State Police further advised that they noticed the timing of the traffic signals is off, so we are now talking with MassDOT and other state and city officials regarding the need to recalibrate those traffic lights. Last week, I also met with Mayor Joe Curtatone and we discussed the potential for the City of Somerville to help provide a set of additional crossing guards to help with the difficult Broadway-McGrath intersection.

I’m glad the State Police responded to my call to help restore order at the intersections of Broadway and McGrath and Pearl and McGrath in East Somerville, and I want to say thank you to everyone who has contacted me to offer feedback and opinions.

While we can take steps such as these to help ensure traffic signals are followed and intersections are not perpetually blocked during rush hour, it is also important to point out that this isn’t a long term solution to the underlying problem of our metropolitan area having the nation’s worst traffic. That’s a problem that’s been decades in the making, and to fix it, we need to make big investments in public transportation, multimodal/sustainable transit infrastructure, and affordable housing near transit. Completion of the Green Line Extension should be a big help.

Constituents are always welcome to reach out to me directly via Mike.Connolly@MaHouse.gov or call my State House office (617-722-2060, ask for Rep. Connolly) with any questions or concerns about this or any other matter.