Dear Editor,

Back in 2003 after ten years of lobbying with the help of Halsey Herreshoff and Bristol’s state legislators, my wife Gail and I secured passage of state law 31-25-27.2 banning large through trucks from traveling on Hope Street (State Route 114) in the center of historic Bristol.

Thus far, our long-standing efforts to secure passage of a very important state highway safety law has been unsuccessful. We have long urged some form of traffic control at the junction of State Routes 136 (Metacom Avenue) and 114 (Ferry Road). That unregulated merger is hazardous in the extreme. Southbound drivers on Route 136, unfamiliar with that intersection (such as out-of-state visitors to RWU), barrel through it at high speeds and their centrifugal force carries them into the short right lane allowed to Ferry Road travelers who proceed unimpeded.

A stop sign, a traffic light, or even a rotary would cure the problem and probably save a life such as the one lost a few years ago on the bike path crossing at Poppasquash Road after appeals like mine were ignored.

A town council request to our General Assembly delegation should safeguard this perilous junction of state highways given the obvious and blatant danger of doing nothing.

Being somewhat familiar with the state of Rhode Island, I know of no other place where our state highways merge (or collide) without some traffic control device. Perhaps a fatal accident will prove to be the incentive to act.

Patrick T. Conley
Bristol