Select Board seeks authority to limit speeds on town roads

If Town Meeting approves, Harvard may soon have the legal authority it needs to counter speeding on town roads, a growing problem on Harvard’s formerly bucolic byways.

In back-to-back unanimous votes Tuesday night, the Select Board agreed to submit two articles for next month’s Fall Town Meeting warrant that would empower officials to lower speed limits in areas of town that have become, in the words of alarmed residents, speedways. The first offers a short-term solution that would provide immediate relief to Still River Village and, potentially, other areas of town. The second measure requires the approval of the Legislature, but targets specific roads beyond the reach of the first.

Complaints of speeding on Harvard roads have been on the rise, from Ayer Road to Still River, Littleton, and Bolton roads, triggering 911 calls to the police, as reported each week in the Press police log, and endangering the walkers, bikers, and others who use them. Select Board members have told the Press that the issue dominates the email and phone calls they receive from constituents. Tuesday’s meeting drew a crowd of nearly 40 residents, many from Still River, who tuned in via Zoom.

Drawing on research by members Kara Minar and Erin McBee and the advice of Town Administrator Tim Bragan and Town Counsel Mark Lanza, the board has considered a number of options during the past year, but this week settled on two.

First, Fall Town Meeting will be asked to adopt a provision of Massachusetts law that allows a town to set a townwide limit of 25 miles per hour. If enacted, DPW could immediately post signs stating that “unless otherwise posted,” 25 mph is the maximum speed allowed within Harvard.

The law is “a bit of a misnomer,” McBee admitted Tuesday night. Posted speeds, such as the 40 mph limit on a stretch of Ayer Road, cannot be changed. And the 25 mph limit can only be applied to “thickly settled” areas or business districts, either of which has to meet criteria set by the state. Still River Road and Still River Depot Road have been shown by means of a geographical information system survey to qualify as densely settled areas. Once the Town Meeting accepts the provisions of Mass. General Law officials can identify other areas that qualify and reduce the permitted speed there to 25 mph. McBee noted that with the new construction she’s been seeing in town—which she termed “infill”—areas that are not currently “thickly settled,” could soon become so.

One issue with this approach is its inflexibility. The law says the townwide speed limit has to be 25 mph, and it does not allow the town to set limits appropriate to traffic conditions elsewhere on roads that are currently unposted. The 25 mph limit becomes the default, whether appropriate or not.

A home-rule petition, the second proposal voted by the Select Board, would let the town set road-by-road limits. Bragan told board members that the state’s home-rule law empowers Harvard to petition the Legislature for permission to set speed limits on any stretch of roadway in town, overriding both a 25 mph townwide limit and limits currently posted in those areas. Tuesday the board agreed to pursue the petition as a second track. It’s one that will take longer to work its way through the Massachusetts House and Senate, but board Chair Stu Sklar said he hoped state Rep. Dan Sena and state Sen. Jamie Eldridge could move the petition along quickly.

The petition will include a list of roads and the particular speed limits the town wishes to impose. And once it passes Town Meeting and the legislature, no other agencies, such as the Department of Transportation or Registry of Motor Vehicles, need to be involved.

At Sklar’s request, Harvard police Sgt. James Babu had provided the board with a list of roads that have been a source of recent complaints (see list below), and that list has been incorporated into the petition. During public comment, Davida Bagatelle of West Bare Hill Road asked that Bolton Road be included in the list. Others may be added when the article is drafted—and Town Meeting can amend the list further.

It’s now up to Town Meeting to approve the two articles next month, as Sklar reminded attendees. “If you want to make sure this happens,” he told Tuesday night’s audience, “voting at Town Meeting would be a great idea.”