Julie Jacobson and Randi Burns were forced to leave after a drunk driver slammed into the side of their home in January. Now, they’re hoping the city will reconfigure their road to protect what they rebuild.
Three times within a two-year span, cars have failed to make the turn at the southern end of Broadway, where it bends up to meet South Main Street, and hit the property on the corner.
The first time, a car took out one side of the garage. The second, a car hit the house directly, damaging the foundation and basement. Jacobson bought the 1934 cape in August, about eight months after the second crash. She knew about the history, but saw it as a fluke.
“We laughed and said, ‘What are the odds?” Jacobson said. “They were really good.”
The Chevy Silverado blew out the baseboards of her 16-year-old granddaughter’s bedroom after 1 a.m. in the morning on a cold January night. While a chainlink fence outside had slowed its charge, the truck knocked the house six inches off its foundation, which cracked through both sides. It was deemed a teardown.
Last year, the city added a new white fog line and an additional chevron sign along the bend. A potential reconfiguration of the intersection had been discussed, but it’s ten years back in the city’s lineup for those kinds of projects, slated for 2035.
Jacobson and her neighbors want it moved to the front of the line.
“We understand that there’s a bigger picture than just that intersection – the whole South End has traffic flow problems,” said Teresa Vincent, who collected signatures from around her neighborhood for the city to take action. “We’re asking for a change now to fix that part, so that she can be safe and people who are traveling that little neck on Broadway street don’t get into accidents that may take somebody’s life.”
Broadway is long, wide and straight. Traveling South, from town towards the interstate, the artery ends with the four-way stop at Rockingham Street, followed by the turn in front of Jacobson’s house.
Houses on that stretch of the road have stone pillars in their front yards like bollards.
City traffic engineers and committees have taken a look at the area and recommended that some further short-term improvements be brought forward and studied, and a more in-depth reconfiguration be looked at in conjunction with the city’s master planning process.
Neighbors have suggested options like flashing stop signs, or closing Broadway to through-traffic after Rockingham. Engineers with the city have cautioned against unexpected consequences of rushed changes, or questioned whether slighter improvements will actually impede drunk drivers.
In recent days, the city’s traffic engineer and other staff visited the area as part of a review, according to a city spokesperson.
The city council could move the project forward as part of the capital planning section of the current budget process.
Jacobson bought the house as a fresh start for herself, her grandchildren, and her daughter, who was going through a divorce and battling cancer. Now, they’re in temporary housing, an apartment near Blossom Hill Cemetery, through March of 2027.
She and her daughter are redesigning their home, with the bedrooms moved to the back of the house and adding a stone wall in the front. But they’re still uneasy about the idea of living off Broadway. They know the odds now.
“I have to rebuild there,” she told the city council. “I don’t know if I can move back in.”
