Engineering, Not More Enforcement, Key To Swampscott Traffic Safety: Police Captain

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Swampscott Capt. Joseph Kable told the Select Board Tuesday night that a long-term solution to the traffic safety issues often cited in resident complaints is streets and intersections designed to slow and stop traffic — such as with speed bumps and narrowed lanes — not increased citations, which he compared to the largely-failed "war on drugs" in America.

"It's a lot of effort to see where we've accomplished almost nothing," he said during a lengthy presentation amid Tuesday night's Select Board meeting that lasted nearly five hours.

Kable's presentation was in response to repeated Select Board requests for an update on traffic safety measures and specific plans to address the perception, at least, that the streets are dangerously filled with speeding cars.

Kable said the solution is a redesign of some of the more concerning areas, which were originally built to quickly and efficiently move traffic through the town, the opposite of what some residents and Board members are now requesting.

Specifically in response to the calls for more patrols and enforcement of traffic violations in designated problem areas, he said that increasingly writing additional citations is seen as ineffectual in doing much more than making someone angry that they got a ticket, or at worst creating the perception that Swampscott police are targeting out-of-town residents — who tend to have a broader racial makeup than town residents — and could create the appearance that the town has a racial bias toward stopping and ticketing.

"I am not saying that the police will not do their job and will not engage certain populations," Kable said. "That is absolutely not the case. But traffic enforcement does have some unique concerns in the area of bias. It is one of the most common, if not the most common, police-initiated interactions."

He said that one enforcement mechanism that could be most effective is stop-light cameras, where tickets could then be issued strictly based on the data and evidence collected and be free of any racial bias, but would also eliminate the idea that a Swampscott resident may get off with a warning where a non-resident may not get that benefit in a given circumstance.

"A residency bias, which many people will expect, can and will manifest in a racial bias based on the demographic statistics of a town like Swampscott," he said, adding that ticketing for "defective equipment" presents a similar economic bias since Marblehead and Swampscott drivers are more likely to have nicer cars than drivers from neighboring towns with less economic means.

"Most people just need the reminder from police," he said. "They don't need the sanction of a citation. For the vast majority of people, the idea of a money fine is just not the right approach.

"Most people don't deserve that."

He said that many of the more chronic offenders will learn the patterns of local police, or use technology such as a phone app, to avoid the areas when patrols are likely to be there and continue their behavior when they are not.

More effective, he said, are the speed "pillows" that were recently installed on Stetson Avenue. He said there are two more moveable sets that he agreed could be installed quickly this summer once locations are determined.

The presentation was broken up by an hour-long public comment on the proposed expanded parking around Phillips Beach, but when it resumed some Select Board members expressed frustration that it was long on theory and light on immediate solutions that could be tried temporarily to help determine effectiveness.

"Clearly, this is a problem," Select Board member Katie Phelan said, "because you are presenting facts that say we are making all the right stops, and have the right number of tickets per officer, and there is a whole community of people out there saying that we are not.

"So, somehow we have to bridge that gap."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)