With the successful repaving of the Park Street and Playhouse Lots finished, town officials say they’re now looking for a way to slow down motor vehicle traffic whizzing down the access road that runs down to Main Street.
The town is “going to try to tackle some of the speed now because people are shooting through the boulevard quickly,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.
The newly paved Park Street Lot on May 5, 2026. Credit: Michael Dinan
“We’re going to look to try to put some speed humps or speed bumps on the way just to calm them down a little bit as they come through Town Hall,” Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Tuesday at Town Hall and via videoconference. The comments came during Mann’s general update on DPW projects to the Board.
The long-awaited repaving projects have seen wider car stalls painted into the parking lots. Mann thanked residents, visitors and Town Hall workers for accommodating the paving schedule.
“I think that the lots look really nice,” Mann said. “I walked it yesterday. I think they look really nice. They [the lots] were being well utilized and everyone was in their lane. Everything was perfect.”
Mann said that a utility pole in the area will be moved, and that town is working closely with Eversource to finish the project quickly.
Asked by Selectman Amy Murphy Carroll about replacement plantings for the west side of the Park Street Lot (running along Park Street itself), Mann said that the town will plant eight arborvitae and two London plane trees.
Selectman Steve Karl noted that currently, with no plantings there, the sight lines of the Park Street Lot “are amazing without anything there.”
“I would hate to see us absolutely just block everything with arborvitae or something where you can’t see,” he said.
When Murphy Carroll noted that the area is “way more exposed than it was before,” Karl agreed, adding: “I would say underplanting rather than overplanting there would be a smart idea.”
Mann said that the town is looking to “peel the asphalt back” in the Park Street lot and improve the area where it runs along an embankment above an access road on the south side.
“Once we put the ramp in there, then we’ll be looking to replant that area,” he said. “There are areas where we’re going to be peeling back the asphalt, removing asphalt, and actually reducing the impervious area.”
I appreciate the effort to improve safety through measures like speed bumps. However, instead of expanding paid parking meters, the town should consider removing the new meters and evaluating the installation of a red light enforcement camera at one of the town’s busiest intersections. If the goal is both revenue and public safety, a red light camera could help accomplish both without placing additional costs and inconvenience on residents and local shoppers. Unlike parking meters, which primarily impact people visiting downtown businesses, red light cameras focus on dangerous traffic violations.