There’s this thing painted on the pavement at Red Lion corner. Stockbridge Updates has written about it before. It is shaped like an egg. It is right in the middle of the intersection. The paint was laid down so long ago and so many cars have driven over it –not knowing what it was there for – that it is now all but invisible.
What was it there for? To save lives, prevent injury to people and property. Think of it as a shrunken traffic circle.
Some time ago, we had studies about road safety in Stockbridge – speed limits through Town, potentially dangerous intersections, and possible solutions. Regardless of the statistics – how many accidents it requires for the Commonwealth to identify an intersection as dangerous – many folks just felt uneasy at the intersection of Main Street, Pine Street, and South Street (Red Lion corner).
There were meetings, discussions, and possible solutions posed. One group wanted a traffic light at that corner. Another group wanted a traffic circle. Well, the light was deemed “not Stockbridge” and a regulation-sized circle would take out a piece of the Civil War Memorial and the corner of the porch on the Red Lion. In short, the intersection was too small and there was no enthusiasm for a light.
Enter the engineers. They fashioned The Egg. It would function like a traffic circle. Exactly how is that? A circle reduces the possible points of impact while making the movement of traffic through the intersection more efficient and eliminating the need for stop signs. Sounds good. How does that work?
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? So, without The Egg, when turning, everyone cuts across increasing the points of contact between cars. No one wants that – that is the definition of a traffic accident. If you go around The Egg, all cars always keeping The Egg on the left, there are fewer points of impact. As on a traffic circle, cars are following one another not crisscrossing.
What happened? We voted for The Egg and it was painted on the pavement as a test of its usefulness. No one explained it, no one understood it, everyone drove over it, and the paint faded. That is not what was meant to happen. The next step was to raise The Egg. The paint would be replaced with a raised egg shape on the pavement making crisscrossing impossible. Folks would feel safer because actually they would be safer. The Highway Department said they could raise The Egg with their current budget and staff.
So here is the question: what does our Town administration have against that corner? It was our Town Center — the intersection of Pine, Main, and South Streets to Elm Street. It was the Town center Norman Rockell painted and we celebrated. The Town center that millions of Americans know. Now it is an under-maintained, second-class citizen. We voted the money to maintain the courts on Pine Street, and Town administration chose not to spend it on the courts. Our Town had a contractual obligation to maintain the courts, and for years, it was not honored. Finally, due to neglect, the damage to the tennis courts was described as too expensive to undertake and we did not undertake it. The painted Egg was never raised – the mini traffic circle never created. What happened and where is our Town Center now?
Carole Owens
Executive Editor
