OPINION|
Something is different at Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Park and it’s not a new garden of nearly extinct flowers.
It’s a no-left-turn sign posted at the exit. It was placed there on Monday, April 22.
Now, when you exit onto Scenic Avenue, you can only turn right, which is north, heading toward Sunshine Street. You no longer can make a left to get to Battlefield Road.
Scenic Avenue is two lanes wide as it passes the park. The entrance/exit to the park is at about the midpoint between Sunshine and Battlefield. Based on my odometer, it’s 0.7 miles to Sunshine and 0.8 miles to Battlefield.
I called the Springfield Greene-County Park Board to ask: Why?
To me, it seems rather inconvenient for those visitors leaving the park who would prefer to turn left onto Scenic to get to Battlefield.
I spoke to Jenny Fillmer Edwards, spokeswoman for the Park Board.
I wondered: Was there a serious accident involving someone turning left onto Scenic from the park?
No. “Not that I am aware of,” she says.
“It’s to alleviate traffic backups from vehicles exiting the park,” she said. “Certainly, we experience delays during festivals, large events or even busy weekends. But even on a regular weekday traffic can get backed up several cars when someone is attempting a left turn.”
Doesn’t take much for traffic to back up into park
The left-turn prohibition was used during the Japanese Fall Festival, held annually the weekend after Labor Day in the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Gardens. Once the festival ended, the Park Board took down the no-left-turn sign.
“Staff on site has decided to put it back up,” Edwards says. “We certainly could have used it prior to Monday. But it was just Monday when they realized we can put that back up. The line of reasoning is that it’s busy out there all the time.”
Edwards says the no-left-turn sign will be posted for the “foreseeable future.”
The short road from the parking lot in the park to Scenic is only two lanes leading out of the park — one in each direction. So it doesn’t take much for traffic to back up inside the park waiting for someone to turn left onto Scenic.
Still, I decided to call Cora Scott, spokeswoman for the City of Springfield. It just seems odd to me that Parks Board personnel can decide when to put up a no-left-turn sign — without first getting an OK from, say, the public works department or Springfield traffic engineers.
Scott responded via email:
“According to traffic engineering, since it is a ‘private’ entrance and not a city street, Parks has the right to put up” the no-left-turn sign. “However, if it would impact street traffic, public works might step in.”
This is Pokin Around column No. 179.
