When Newton resident David Hedison moved from Boston to a house near the intersection of Waverley Avenue and Franklin Street, he started to notice that the area had an abnormally high rate of accidents.
Hedison moved during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with Newton residents isolating at home, the volume of traffic at the intersection had decreased. But as the pandemic drew to a close, he began observing a dangerous pattern.
“Right when Covid started coming to an end, we were like, ‘Wow, what is going on at that intersection?’” he said. “I [felt] like we were back in the city with cars screeching, horns honking, and then we would start hearing crashes.”
Hoping to find a solution to the problem, Hedison contacted the Newton City Council in 2022 and reviewed documentation showing that plans to install a speed-reducing raised table at the intersection had been discussed. He said he did not understand why they were not being implemented.
“People are getting hurt, and I just wish [the City] would have placed a higher priority on getting this out to bid sooner, rather than later,” he said. “It just [did] not seem like a priority to the City at times.”
In late 2023, Hedison was nearly hit by a speeding car while crossing the intersection. He said that the experience inspired him to begin documenting the accidents he observed – and emailing the pictures he took to City Councilors and other Newton officials.
“I was so angry, and I felt like people almost didn’t believe that it was that much of an issue,” he said. “I think pictures speak a lot louder than words, because I can say there was an accident, but when you can start seeing cars that are turned sideways on a sidewalk or airbags that have gone off, you realize that people’s lives are at risk.”
Now, months after Hedison first started emailing pictures, the original plan has started to take shape. In a statement to Fig City News, the City’s Director of Transportation, Ned Codd, said that since the project’s approval in May 2024, the final design has been completed. Construction is slated to begin in spring 2025 and is expected to be finished by the end of the summer.
However, the placement of bollards – vertical posts that serve as traffic barriers – at the intersection has yet to be finalized. Codd said that the Department of Public Works (DPW) has been coordinating with abutters of the intersection as well as City Councilors to discuss the issue.
Codd said that because of the design of the raised intersection, he believes that installing bollards would be an important safety measure.
“The proposed raised intersection would elevate the roadway surface to the same level as the surrounding curbs and sidewalks,” he said. “Because of this, the installation of bollards is a best practice for protecting pedestrians from turning vehicles, and keeping vehicles from cutting corners too sharply and encroaching on pedestrian space.”
City Council President and mayoral candidate Marc Laredo said that he thinks the raised table has the potential to make a major difference in the safety of the intersection.
“[It] should slow everybody going through the intersection down, which in turn will make everybody more careful going into the intersection and make it a lot safer,” he said. “I hope [the changes] will slow down traffic at the intersection, and make what many people think is a dangerous intersection better.”
A variety of other factors further complicated the design of the raised intersection. Codd said the design team was tasked with reducing vehicle speeds while at the same time allowing the intersection to remain part of an essential pathway for emergency vehicles.
“The intersection of Waverley and Franklin is also on an important Newton Fire Department route,” he said. “DPW staff have worked carefully over the years to collaborate with Newton’s first responders on the design of traffic-calming measures such as this raised intersection so that they are amenable to emergency response needs.”
The Waverley and Franklin intersection is just one of many Newton intersections that have been flagged for traffic concerns and the need for traffic calming. The most recent version of the DPW’s Traffic Calming Report, published in 2024, indicated that Newton residents and City employees submitted requests for traffic calming at 220 different Newton intersections in 2023.
According to the report, the construction of the raised table at Waverley and Franklin is one of 11 traffic-calming measures that are in the process of being implemented.
In the coming months, the DPW is expected to publish a review of traffic-calming requests and projects from 2024. In the Mayor’s Listening Session with the City Council to discuss budget priorities on February 6, Councilors Andreae Downs and Julia Malakie called attention to the need for traffic-calming measures.
Theo Younkin is a Fig City News student reporter, a junior at Newton South High School, and Co-Managing Editor of the NSHS Lion’s Roar.
