It’s almost time for school again, which means watching the students who have to walk down Abbott Road play hopscotch with the cars as they try to get to the bus on Manor Road. There is no provision for them to cross the circle, which is one of many problems at this hair-brained traffic circle.
The original basis for this roundabout was to slow traffic from the intersection of Manor and Abbott roads. The biggest problem is the lack of sidewalks for the students, which is a huge safety issue.
Other issues are that the five or six houses on Abbott Road are now faced with traffic that comes around the corner of Manor Road at 25 or 30 mph, as opposed to before, when those vehicles had to stop. It’s like playing dodge ’em as one tries to leave their driveway. Traffic on Manor also can now go past the intersection of Dempsey Drive and Manor Road at 30 to 40 mph, when before they had to stop.
Don’t even try to go from southbound Abbott to westbound Manor if you happen to be towing a trailer, as I often do. The only way to do it is to make a complete loop of the roundabout. The time has come to rip up this experiment and replace it with a four-way stop intersection, as some of us originally proposed, before there is a serious or even a fatal pedestrian accident at this boondoggle. For certain the lawsuit will be huge.
JIM MERROW
Penacook