EAST LONGMEADOW – Starting sometime next week, motorists will see a difference at the East Longmeadow rotary: there will be only one lane open, instead of the present two, at the Maple Street entrance to the rotary.

Robert Peirent, superintendent of the East Longmeadow Department of Public Works (DPW), said to Reminder Publications, “I do expect it’s going to back up traffic.”

Peirent echoed the words of Police Chief Jeffrey Dalessio who explained the intersection was the worst in the rotary for accidents.

Next week the DPW will install a series of barrels that will eliminate the right hand lane at the Maple Street entrance.

Dalessio said currently accidents happen because you have two lanes of traffic on Maple Street trying to enter the rotary at the same time there are motorists on Shaker Road trying to do the same thing.

Frequently a driver in one of the Maple Street lanes will cross over into the other lane once in the rotary, Dalessio said, causing an accident.

Peirent called it the “worst crash location.” He added town officials wanted to get the lane closed prior to the closing of school. Peirent said during the summer the rotary has less traffic.

Peirent said if the decision is made to make the entrance permanently a single land, the DPW will get rid of the barrels and widen the existing traffic islands.

“This is just one step to overall improvements,” Dalessio said. He is interested in investigating a feature the city of Westfield has used to help slow down traffic: raised crosswalks. He explained the walkways are not as severe as traffic bumps, but slow down cars to about 15 miles an hour.  

The chief noted the rotary is not legally a rotary. He explained in Massachusetts motorists in the rotary have the right of way and cars entering the rotary must yield. The East Longmeadow rotary instructs motorists inside it to yield to the outside traffic.

In 2013, then-Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey visited the town and witnessed traffic at the rotary himself. At the time he said he would see to it that a new study on ways to improve the East Longmeadow rotary would be funded.

Davey said at the time the study would be funded by an upcoming transportation bond bill.

“I was amazed to drive up and actually see dangerous intersection signs. We shouldn’t have those in this state, so this is a project that I committed today that we would work with the town, state Sen. Gale Candaras and state Rep. Angelo Puppolo Jr. to fund the new study,” Davey said in 2013, explaining that the bond bill, which should have been completed by the House and Senate by that Thanksgiving to allow the Department of Transportation to spend money that has already been raised.

Nothing had been done before Davey departed the position and the rotary has not been a priority for any of his successors.