Lawrence residents oppose 2-way road

A Lawrence village board of trustees plan to ease congestion in the area of Washington and Central avenues by widening a one-way street and making it two-way has drawn opposition from residents who say the street is too narrow for that purpose.

Mayor Martin Oliner told residents at Thursday's board meeting that making Williams Street two-way is necessary to ease congestion in the area.

"We had too much congestion going down to Washington Avenue" due to the newly opened Mesivta Ateres Yaakov High School on Mulry Lane and Washington Avenue, village administrator David E. Smollett said on Friday. "We wanted to redirect some of the traffic flow."

Williams Street runs north from Central to Mulry.

Under the two-way traffic plan, about 100 feet of the 450-foot long Williams Street would be widened by cutting three feet off the sidewalks on one side of the street. That would trim the sidewalks' width to 4.9 feet, Smollett said, and widen Williams from 18.3 feet to 21.3 feet.

There are no estimates about the cost of the expansion project, Smollett said.

The village paid $5,000 to Cameron Engineering and Associates, based in Woodbury, to devise a plan to alleviate traffic in the area. Part of the proposal would allow drivers coming south on Williams to make a right turn only onto Central Avenue.

"We are trying to address the [congestion] problem in multiple intersections," trustee Michael A. Fragin said at the board meeting. "This looks like a possible way to solve the problem."

But a dozen residents at the meeting spoke out against the proposed plan. "You are looking for an accident waiting to happen if you make it a two-way street," said Lawrence resident Ann Werthien. "Three more feet is not enough for a car."

Other residents said drivers on Williams would ignore the right-turn-only sign and still make a left turn onto Central.

But the mayor said the board would consider installing a small island to prevent drivers from making a left there.

"We are talking about Central Avenue, an area that is very congested," Oliner said. "We need to find a solution."