Bristolians already suffer from heavy traffic on both the town’s main arteries — Hope Street and Metacom Avenue. Despite this, a drive-thru Dunkin’ Donuts is now being proposed, which would only worsen the conditions on Hope Street and raise a number of troubling safety issues.

The drive-thru is suggested for the area between Chestnut Street and Gooding Avenue, near which, in a very short distance, there is:

• Significant high school car and bus traffic from Chestnut Street.

• The entrance to Colt State Park, with its thousands of visitors, plus patrons of the town sports complex and Town Beach.

• The fire station (with intermittent lights).

• Sales Road, which is the only entrance and exit of a maze of 14 streets, serving a considerable resident population.

• More than one RIPTA bus stop.

• The busy Gooding Avenue intersection.

The questions of vehicle accidents and loss of life must be carefully considered. The portion of Fales Road immediately adjacent to Hope Street is on a hill, which causes frequent complications, for example, due to black ice in bad weather. In addition, the approach to Gooding Avenue Plaza from Hope Street from the north and the south is already very busy, with multiple cars often queueing to turn, and this would only become exacerbated under the current proposal.

Finally, and crucially, the fire station trucks must be able to efficiently function and not be ensnared in traffic, and parking spaces for the volunteer firefighters should not be eliminated, as is currently envisioned. The dedication of these volunteers is important to the safety of our citizens and reduces our tax burden. Eliminating their parking spots is not in the community’s interest.

The proposal of Gordon R. Archibald, Inc. and the memorandum of traffic engineer Ms. Anna Novo are ill-designed and misleading, for the following reasons:

First, the collected data is extremely limited — only between 7 and 9 a.m. on one Thursday in December 2015. This ignores the reality of the heavy traffic times on this section of Hope Street, which must take into account the high school start and end times; the sunset and weekend traffic resulting from the thousands of visitors to Colt State Park and the Town Beach and sports complex; and the needs of the fire station and the community it supports. In fact, the owner of the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise is counting on heavy traffic for the drive=thru concept because there are no concessions in Colt State Park.

Second, the comparison with the Dunkin’ Donuts in Warren is very erroneous because the conditions there do not present the complicating factors on Hope Street.

The proposed location for the drive-thru neglects the needs of the considerable resident population of not only Fales Road but 13 additional streets, all depending on Fales Road for their only access to Hope Street; would make it difficult for the fire station to operate efficiently; and does not even take into account vehicle accident data.

It is ironic that the traffic engineer study, which utterly fails to consider the community’s needs, was commissioned and paid for by the town administration, on behalf of us.

Please come to the Zoning Board meeting on Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. in Town Hall to discuss this important town matter.

Vassil Zlatarski
131 Fales Road