There's never a dull moment for The Revelator – readers keep us stocked with tough questions and challenging mysteries about the city we all know and love, and in turn, we tap our exclusive list of secret sources (aka: Tom Aspell) for the answers.
Here's the latest letter to arrive in the Revelator inbox:
This seems like a question only The Insider can answer.
I've lived on and travelled through the Centre Street/North Main Street intersection for 25 years and like many thought I understood the traffic light pattern of that central Concord spot pretty well (everyone gets left turn signals, then cars go straight, with slight but exciting variations depending on traffic volume in the turn lanes and the number of cars present).
However, the past few weeks, there seems to be a not-so-subtle change, where the eastbound Centre Street traffic goes first, then the westbound traffic. What gives?
First they mess with our traffic patterns, next they'll be installing bicycle lanes and making the city pedestrian-friendly! Eager readers wanna know.
Thanks.
Gary Sobelson
An excellent question, Gary. We mapped the location using our handy-dandy global positioning system, which we snagged for next to nothing on Black Friday – totally worth getting up at 2 a.m. for – and found the intersection in question. After cheering our technological skills and taking a coffee break at Starbucks, we determined that we no idea why the signal pattern would have changed, and as we usually stare blankly into space at traffic lights, hadn't really noticed the change ourselves.
That's when we broke out the aforementioned list of secret sources. We e-mailed one of them at random and got this helpful reply from Rob Mack, traffic engineer for the city:
Yes, the sequence of traffic phases was recently changed at the Main/Centre/Loudon intersection. The new sequence is: eastbound left/through/right traffic from Centre; followed by eastbound and westbound through/right traffic (no left turns); followed by westbound left/through/right traffic from Loudon Road. The movement of the North Main Street traffic approaches is also new, with northbound left/through/right starting off, followed by the southbound movement of left/through/right.
This change was made in October as part of the city's “CIP 283 Loudon Road Traffic Signal and Sidewalk Improvement Project.” One objective of this project was to interconnect and synchronize Loudon Road traffic signals from Main Street, through Exit 14, and east to the Everett Arena driveways. This acts to reduce the number of traffic stops formerly experienced by Loudon Road traffic while traveling through this system of multiple, closely-spaced signals.
Regards
Rob
Thanks, Rob, for coming to the rescue on this one. Having read the response, we are going to go ahead and continue staring blankly into space at traffic lights, but we do hope that answers your question, Gary. At least you can rest easy knowing aliens aren't hacking into the traffic signal system. Just think of the havoc that would wreak!
While we had Rob's attention, we decided to throw another question his way, even though we knew it wasn't his department. We figured he'd know someone, who might know someone else, who might have the answer.
Dear Revelator
We've been passing by (on Interstate 393) the construction in front of the old Page Belting building. Any idea what is going on there?
We've asked around, and no one seems to know. We trust you could find out!
A Curious Reader
You certainly came to the right place, Curious Reader. Thanks to Rob, we got a call from Matt Walsh, assistant for special projects for the city. Through a series of missed calls and voicemails, it was revealed that the construction is a new office building for Weston Solutions, an environmental engineering company that moved its headquarters from Manchester to Concord. The 21,300-square-foot building is LEED certified, said Matt, which means the company opted for an earth-friendly building. That would explain the greenery on the roof – it's to help mitigate storm runoff, but it looks nice, too.
Weston Solutions had offices in Concord from the late '70s though 1996, so this is something of a homecoming for the company. (We're glad they came to their senses.)
Got a question for The Revelator? E-mail news@theconcordinsider.com and we'll do our best to track down an answer.
