High Costs and Traffic Surge Persuade Norwood Selectmen to Abandon Neponset Street Relief Plan-October 22, 1982

Costly Road Connections and Projected Traffic Spikes Stall Neighborhood Plan

Soaring cost estimates and staggering traffic projections have convinced Norwood selectmen to abandon a proposed infrastructure fix designed to ease dangerous driving conditions for residents living in neighborhoods off Neponset Street.

Town Manager John J. Carroll reported to the board that connecting the Wedgewood and Norton Drive neighborhoods to the signalized traffic lights at Cherrywood Drive—providing motorists with a safer, light-controlled exit onto the busy roadway—would cost an estimated $130,000. The engineering breakdown revealed that connecting Longmeadow Road to Cherrywood over Old Farm Road would cost $80,000, with an additional $50,000 required to construct Old Farm from Longmeadow to Deerfield Road.

Finance Commissioner’s Appeal Meets Traffic Impact Data

The neighborhood traffic dilemma had been brought before selectmen by Thomas DiFrancia, a member of the Finance Commission and a resident of Norton Drive, who sought assistance for motorists struggling to navigate peak-hour traffic onto Neponset Street without the aid of a traffic light.

However, municipal traffic counts presented by Carroll demonstrated that opening the connection would trigger a massive influx of vehicles onto Cherrywood Drive:

• Morning Rush Hour: Exiting traffic would surge by 138 to 159 vehicles, building upon the baseline of just 21 vehicles—representing a 657 percent increase.
• Evening Rush Hour: Exiting traffic would jump by 60 to 69 vehicles, adding to the current nine-vehicle baseline—representing a 666 percent increase.

Faced with the prohibitive price tag and the dramatic neighborhood traffic surge, selectmen moved to drop the proposed roadway connection.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger