Speed limit changes could be ‘first step’ toward safer streets

MARION – A Town Meeting agenda item that would allow the Marion Select Board to establish 25 mile per hour speed limits on any town-owned roadway in a thickly settled area or business district is a “small step in a long project” to increase roadway safety in town, said Town Administrator Geoff Gorman. 

This item, if approved, gives the Marion Select Board “the authority to do our own management of our speed limits,” said Gorman at an April 25 Town Meeting information session.

He noted that this item doesn’t automatically make any changes if it passes, but it authorizes the Select Board to review individual roads “and determine if the speed limit should change.”

An area is thickly settled if houses are less than 200 feet apart and is a business district if businesses are built up for a quarter-mile distance, according to Massachusetts General Law. 

For some Marion residents, like Jeff Doubrava who lives on Point Road, this change won’t accomplish anything “unless we enforce the existing speed limits.”

“I used to walk Point Road all the time,” he said. “It’s frightening to walk [Point Road] … You have people flying past you at 45 or 50 [miles per hour].”

Doubrava suggested posting a Marion police cruiser at “the shellfish access point, right by where Kittansett starts.” 

“You can give out 50 speeding tickets in an afternoon,” he said. “I understand it’s not popular because there’s going to be townspeople sometimes getting ticketed, but somebody’s going to get killed.”

Marion resident Christian Ingerslev proposed instituting “traffic calming” methods that could lower speed limits on Marion roads. 

Gorman said that this Town Meeting item is the “first step” in making changes like those suggested by residents. 

A 2022 study by engineering firm Greenwood Pederson Inc. recommended lowering the town’s speed limit from 30 to 25 miles per hour and implementing a “safety zone” with a speed limit of 20 miles per hour on Spring Street from Ryder Lane to Main Street and Front Street from Ryder Lane to South Street.

Other recommendations included painting transverse markings on select roads, which are designed to encourage drivers to slow down, and installing a removable speed hump.

“There’s some really neat optical illusion things you can do on a road,” said Gorman. “That's all a part of a big plan … this particular [item] here is a step that’s required for us to move forward.”

According to Gorman, the next step following a vote on this Town Meeting item will be to redo Marion’s speed regulations, which are from the 1970s.

Marion’s Town Meeting will be held on Monday, May 13 in the Sippican School auditorium starting at 6:45 p.m. All registered voters in Marion are eligible and encouraged to attend.