PORTSMOUTH — During a Town Council meeting more than three years ago, town officials and numerous residents had a clear message for state transportation officials about their plans to reconfigure the intersection of East Main Road and Park Avenue: 

It ain’t broke, so don’t fix it.

Their pleas, however, failed to dissuade the R.I. Department of Transportation (RIDOT), which opened the new intersection to traffic on Thursday morning, Nov. 29.

RIDOT shifted Park Avenue to the south as it meets East Main Road, allowing it to share the same traffic light with Basin Street on the other side of the road. 

“The intersection before was unconventional and confusing, and there were numerous crashes,” Charles St. Martin III, RIDOT spokesman, said in an e-mailed message to The Portsmouth Times. “To make it clearer and safer, it operates like a conventional T intersection.”

And as such, he said, northbound drivers on East Main Road who want to turn right onto Park Avenue must stop for a red light first, he said.

This was one of the major sticking points with residents and town officials when RIDOT presented the plan back in April 2015. They liked the fact that drivers could turn down Park Avenue before the intersection, and said there was no reason to change things.

They also said there were no glaring safety issues at the intersection. “We don’t have a lot of accidents there and we don’t have a lot of speeding complaints there,” Police Chief Thomas Lee told the council three years ago.

Drivers will see a new device on the mast arm of the traffic signal which “should be going live soon,” Mr. St. Martin said Tuesday.

“It is meant to indicate that no right turns on red are permitted when it’s illuminated. This is tied into an enhanced pedestrian crossing system to make it safer to cross the road there,” he said.