Amherst Traffic-Safety Board
The board received and filed five resident requests for stop signs, crosswalks and traffic calming — none met the federal warrants — and voted 6–0 to ask the state DOT to treat the Royal Parkway and Main Street intersection as unsafe in its interchange redesign. It also renewed a standing offer: no Amherst street will volunteer to pilot speed humps.
Somewhere in the Town of Amherst there is a street that would say yes to speed humps, and the Traffic-Safety Board has been looking for it for years. On Wednesday night it asked again — this time of the Lafayette Boulevard neighbourhood, and in unusually direct terms. “This would be the type of neighbourhood where I think would be a good pilot area.”
The board's position is not ambiguous and has not changed: it is in favour of speed humps, bumps and tables. What it lacks is a street. The town requires roughly 70 percent of a street's residents to support installation before anything proceeds. Two streets have been put forward as pilots. Neither cleared the threshold. Westfield, whose 85th-percentile speed runs about 41 mph in a 30 zone, was polled and failed — residents were worried about noise, and about resale value.
That worry, two members argued, is largely imported. The research residents cite comes from the City of Buffalo, where houses sit close together on short setbacks. “That noise would be much less in a suburban context where the houses are set back further,” one said. Another went further: “I would strongly push back on any of the fear-mongering tactics of your resale value.” Nobody actually knows, he conceded — and the speculation alone has been enough to stop every attempt.
There are real objections too, and the board named them rather than hiding them. The highway department worries about plough damage; police and fire object that humps slow emergency response. The board's answer was a clean statement of its own remit: “Our role here is to take things specifically just from traffic safety. Their role is from safety and rescue. If on our point of view it's good and their point is bad, then that's fine. We're allowed to have different views from different departments.”
The chicken-and-egg is what keeps the thing frozen. Until one street installs humps, the town has no local before-and-after data, no guidelines, and no precedent — so every request is judged on speculation. “Until you get the first street to go to do it as the test pilot area to get that data, we are stuck.”
Hence the offer, made twice. If the Lafayette and Royal Parkway neighbourhoods canvass their neighbours and come back with support, the board will take it to the Town Board. Two humps on Lafayette between Main and Queen; perhaps six across Royal Parkway East and West. “If that works, then you have every neighbourhood now with a legitimate pilot that really did work. It's a tool that would be in the toolbox for every region.”
Nearly everything this board can and cannot do traces to the MUTCD — the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, with a New York State supplement. It is not guidance. It is the rulebook the town is required to follow.
A warrant is the numerical threshold a location must hit before a device may be installed. For an all-way stop the main one is volume: roughly 300 vehicles an hour on the major approach and 200 on the minor, averaged over the highest eight hours. An alternative route in is crash history — five or more reportable crashes in twelve months, which also relaxes the volume numbers.
Miss both and the board cannot recommend the sign, however much a street wants it. That single fact accounts for four of Wednesday's five refusals.
Chairman Eric Fraas[*] says it before business every month: a stop sign is a traffic control device, not a speed control device. Its job is to assign right of way, not to slow anyone down.
The board's evidence is its own counts. At King Place and Royal Parkway West, an afternoon count found 18 vehicles rolling through, six blowing through and nine stopping. That pattern, members said, repeats at every intersection anyone complains about — and it is worse on residential streets than on busy ones, because locals know what's coming.
Hence the counterintuitive warning: an unwarranted stop sign makes a street less safe, because children learn to expect cars to stop and the cars don't. One member went all the way: strip stop signs out of residential neighbourhoods entirely, so nobody assumes right of way and everybody slows. He cited an uncontrolled intersection in his own neighbourhood as the safest one on it.
The night's largest item was two items. Royal Parkway West residents want their street's connection to Main Street permanently closed; Lafayette Boulevard residents want their speeds reviewed. The board combined them, because closing one street moves its traffic onto the other.
Royal Park itself is the backdrop. The park was significantly expanded and reopened in 2025 with a soccer field and tennis courts, drawing users from a nearby university[3] and from schools and leagues. Before it opened the town pre-emptively added parking restrictions and wayfinding signage — routed through the state DOT, since the signs sit on a DOT road — to steer park traffic along South Forest and Queen Place rather than through the neighbourhood.
It has not worked as intended. A resident's own field counts, which the town checked and broadly accepted, found about 52 percent of observed movements using Royal Parkway West rather than the designated route, ranging from 41 to 70 percent. He also produced a petition: 51 signatures, then 11 more, 62 in total.
The counters told a more awkward story. Royal Parkway West carries about 292 vehicles a day at 85th-percentile speeds of 23 and 24 mph — well under the limit. Lafayette carries 807 at 27 and 28. Game day actually produced slightly fewer vehicles than a non-game day, though the 2–5 p.m. window rose by about 30.
Residents made the case anyway, and it was mostly about the Main Street intersection rather than the park. One who has lived there 39 years called it “extremely, extremely dangerous” and asked how long the town would wait “for somebody to be injured or killed.” She is hard of hearing, walks without sidewalks, and said her dog is what warns her about cars behind her. Others testified they simply never turn left onto Main any more — they drive to Lafayette instead, which is exactly the traffic Lafayette's residents came to complain about.
Fraas[*] put the uncomfortable question directly. Is the request about an unsafe intersection, or about not wanting park traffic on the street? “The road has been configured the way it's been for many years and there was no concerns coming before the board asking for the street to be closed before the park was there.” A public street serving a public park, he said, is a public asset, and the neighbourhood's interest is not the only one.
The board found a third path. The New York State DOT already has an interchange reconfiguration in design for the 290 ramp that lands beside this intersection — letting expected in 2027, driven partly by bridges needing deck replacement. So the board voted to write to the DOT asking it to evaluate the Royal Parkway and Main Street intersection as part of that project. The motion was amended on the floor before the vote: a member objected that the board could not call an intersection unsafe without evidence, since “the first thing that they're going to look at is going to be accident history.” The letter now goes pending collection of crash data. Carried 6–0.
On closure itself the board declined to vote. Other ideas surfaced instead: tactical urbanism — barricade the street temporarily, count what happens, and find out where the traffic goes before doing anything permanent — and converting Royal Parkway West and East into opposing one-way streets up to Queen Place, an option residents rejected when the park was planned. A member noted the petition's signatures came overwhelmingly from north of Queen, while any change would hit everyone south of it too.
Residents asked for 25 mph. Two obstacles, and the second is the interesting one.
First, Amherst posts 30 mph town-wide by town law. State law now permits lower, but the town's position is that the limit should be uniform — so dropping one street means dropping the whole town. (The Village of Williamsville can and does go lower; it is a separate municipality with separate rules.)
Second, limits are set from observed behaviour, not imposed on it. Engineers use the 85th-percentile speed — the speed at or below which 85 percent of drivers travel — and match the posted limit to it. Amherst has raised limits on that basis: North Union from 35 to 40, and Youngs Road between Main and Sheridan. Before-and-after studies found speeds did not change either time.
The board's conclusion, repeated all evening: people drive the speed the road makes them comfortable driving. Change the road, not the sign.
The board took Halston Parkway out of order and heard it first, because children were waiting in the audience. The complaint was speeding and cut-through traffic on a street with no sidewalks; the data did not support it, and the residents made the most sophisticated argument of the night anyway.
The counts: about 606 vehicles on the highest day, 85th-percentile speeds of 29 eastbound and 31 westbound against a 30 mph limit. A 2014 count on record showed volume down about 10 percent and speeds down 3 and 2 mph since. Three traffic islands already installed on the street are, the board said, plainly doing their job — parallel Muegel Road[*], which has none, runs an 85th percentile of 39.
The lead speaker conceded all of it and then moved the goalposts, correctly. Averages are not what frightens people. He had dug through the raw numbers and found roughly 23 vehicles a day exceeding 40 mph — which across daylight hours means a walker is likely to meet one. “How can that high-speed tail be mitigated?” He volunteered his street as a speed-hump pilot on the spot, and said he thought he could carry the neighbourhood.
The board's answer was that the tail is an enforcement problem, not an engineering one, and probably a very small number of repeat offenders: “If you were counting the license plates of the cars that were doing it, it was probably the same ones every single day going to work.” On residential streets, members added, the speeders are usually residents — when tickets are written, the addresses are in the neighbourhood. Three readings above 65 mph in the data were flagged as probable equipment glitches, since no other day or direction showed anything comparable.
Two neighbours spoke to what the numbers miss: a dog killed by a hit-and-run driver on the street, parents putting out plastic figures because they are “petrified,” and winter afternoons when it is dark by the time children are out. A request for radar feedback signs ran into cost — the last one priced came in above $20,000, and a recent bid for two came back at $90,000. They are reserved for streets carrying two to three thousand vehicles a day.
What the board offered instead was free and slightly subversive: park your cars on the street. Amherst's long driveways and garages leave roads wide and empty, and an empty road reads as a fast road. Pull cars out of the driveway, coordinate with the neighbour opposite, choke the pavement down, and drivers slow because they must. The item was referred to Captain Charles Persons[*] for enforcement in the 1–3 p.m. window where the worst speeds cluster — with the captain's own candid caveat that of all the speed counts he sees, “this is one of the lowest,” and would be a low priority for sustained enforcement. Received and filed, 6–0.
Allenhurst Road at Cambridge Boulevard — an all-way stop, requested for limited visibility, speeding and recent crashes. The same request was reviewed and refused in 2016. Updated counts give Allenhurst 47 vehicles where the warrant needs 200, and Cambridge 57 where it needs 300. Two crashes are on record, both of a type an all-way stop could have prevented — but the MUTCD requires five or more in twelve months before crash history relaxes the volume test. The counts did confirm the intersection is signed the right way round, with the busier road left free-flowing.
This produced the night's only split. Kevin Cantwell[*] argued for consistency: nearly every other four-way intersection along Cambridge is all-way stopped, and the board had previously stop-controlled a whole neighbourhood in Dana Heights for exactly that reason. The counter-argument was that matching would mean adding perhaps six unwarranted signs, at Oxford and Princeton too. Received and filed 5–1, Cantwell opposed.
Paradise Road at Cricket Lane — a marked crosswalk, requested by a student at the nearby high school with a parent. Cricket Lane and the Hamlet together serve only 23 residents, and the spot sits 740 feet from an existing rapid-flashing beacon at Whisperwood. Pedestrian counts found four in the morning and five in the afternoon across a two-hour period; even applying the schoolchildren multiplier that becomes eight and ten, against a threshold of 18 to 20 per hour. Paradise is posted 35 and runs an 85th percentile closer to 39–40, on roughly 7,000 vehicles a day.
Staff advised against paint alone at those speeds, and the board went further: the spot sits directly beside the school's two driveways, where cars turn left while others pass on the right shoulder. A crosswalk there “just encourages unsafe behaviour.” The real fix, members said, is a joint town-and-district redesign of the school entrance down to a single controlled driveway. Received and filed 6–0, with a request that the town inventory the school-zone signage.
Gina Meadows at Kristin Meadows — speeds and safety at the southern intersection. Gina Meadows carries 104 vehicles in a day, Kristin Meadows just under 400; 85th-percentile speeds run 20 to 24 mph in a 30 zone. The high hour was nine vehicles where the warrant needs 200. Received and filed 6–0. “Warrants are not met.”
Six members present and voting: Chairman Eric Fraas[*], Vice Chair Cara Biddlecom[*], Nicholas Alterio[*], Maxwell Kahn[*], Daniel J. Rider[*] and Kevin Cantwell[*]. Traffic Safety Coordinator Christopher P. Schregel[*] presented every item; Captain Charles Persons[*] and other town resource staff attended. Councilmember Michael Szukala[*], the board's liaison, had a conflict and was absent. Speakers get three minutes, with a bell at two and a half. “Received and filed” closes an item without action — the material stays on file and resurfaces in the packet if the street returns.
Moved by the chair, seconded by Cantwell[*]. No comments or changes.
Taken out of order and heard first because children were in the audience. 606 vehicles on the highest day; 85th percentile 29 eastbound, 31 westbound against a 30 mph limit; volume down ~10% and speeds down 2–3 mph since a 2014 count. Three existing traffic islands credited with holding speeds ten miles an hour below parallel Muegel Road[*]. Residents' own analysis identified ~23 vehicles a day above 40 mph. Radar feedback signs declined on cost and volume thresholds. Referred to Captain Persons[*] for targeted enforcement between 1 and 3 p.m. Seconded by Biddlecom[*].
The state has an interchange reconfiguration in design at the adjacent 290 ramp, with letting expected in 2027. The board resolved to write asking DOT to treat the Royal Parkway and Main Street intersection as unsafe and to address it in that design. Amended on the floor before the vote after a member objected that the board cannot assert an intersection is unsafe without evidence, since DOT will look first at accident history: the letter is to go pending collection of crash data for the intersection and the stretch. Seconded by Rider[*].
A 62-signature petition sought permanent closure of the Royal Parkway–Main Street connection. The board declined to vote on closure, noting the street is a public road serving a public park, that closure would push traffic onto Lafayette and South Forest, and that any conceptual closure would still need emergency access. Alternatives raised: tactical urbanism — a temporary barricade with before-and-after counts — and one-way operation of Royal Parkway East and West up to Queen Place, an option residents rejected when the park was planned. A requested all-way stop at Lafayette and King fails the warrants: the highest hour recorded 94 vehicles against 300 required on the major approach. Removing Lafayette's parking restrictions to allow calming by parked cars was floated and judged unlikely to survive resident scrutiny or the Town Board. Seconded and carried.
Warrants not met: Allenhurst 47 vehicles against 200 required; Cambridge 57 against 300. Two crashes on record where five in twelve months are needed to relax the volume test. Counts confirmed the existing two-way control is correctly oriented. Moved by Alterio[*], seconded by Kahn[*]. Cantwell[*] voted no, arguing for consistency with the all-way stops at neighbouring intersections, as the board had done in Dana Heights; the counter was that consistency would require roughly six unwarranted signs. Previously reviewed and refused in 2016.
Requested by a high-school student with a parent. Pedestrian counts of four (AM) and five (PM) over two hours, or eight and ten with the schoolchildren multiplier, against a threshold of 18–20 per hour for a rapid-flashing beacon. Cricket Lane and the Hamlet serve 23 residents; an existing beacon sits 740 feet away at Whisperwood. Paradise posted 35 mph, 85th percentile near 39–40, roughly 7,000 vehicles a day. Staff advised against paint without a protective device; the board added that the location sits amid the high school's driveway conflict points and that a crosswalk there would encourage unsafe crossing. Members said the real remedy is a joint town–school district redesign of the school entrance to a single controlled driveway. Moved by Cantwell[*]. The board asked the town to inventory school-zone and pedestrian signage at the location.
Gina Meadows carries 104 vehicles in a day against 200 required on the minor approach; Kristin Meadows just under 400 against 300 on the major, but the controlling high hour was nine. 85th-percentile speeds of 20–24 mph in a 30 zone. Intersection confirmed correctly signed, with the minor leg stop-controlled. Moved by Cantwell[*], seconded by Alterio[*]. “Warrants are not met.”
Carried over again, with a member remarking it is “like the longest held agenda item ever.” The board has established that a sight-distance analysis is required and has taken that on, hoping to clear the item in November. The recording does not identify the underlying item.[3]
No agenda. The Town of Amherst's IQM2 portal had posted no agenda for this meeting; the pipeline logged “no agenda posted yet (may post later)” on repeated attempts through the night of October 7. Item numbers one through six are taken from the chairman reading them aloud, and the order below follows the meeting rather than the docket — item 4 was heard first, and items 1 and 6 were combined by the chair because closing one street would load the other. The board's packet, described on tape as roughly an eighth of an inch thick for a single item, is not a public document; this brief therefore reports the counts and thresholds as presented aloud, which is all the public record contains.
Corrections. [*] marks a proper noun corrected against this town's verified roster, which governs over the audio. The board's membership was confirmed in September against two of its own agenda mastheads after the Town website roster proved stale. Applied here: Eric Fraas (audio: “Fraz”), Cara Biddlecom (“Carabinell-Combe”), Nicholas Alterio (“Nick Altario”), Maxwell Kahn (“Maxwell-Conn”), Daniel J. Rider (“Dan Ryder”), Christopher P. Schregel (“Chris Schreigel”), Captain Charles Persons (“Captain Pearson”) and Councilmember Michael Szukala (“Zucalla,” “Zucalo”).
Unconfirmed. [3] marks detail the audio alone supports. With no agenda, that includes every resident speaker — none is named in this brief, since the recording's renderings of their names cannot be checked against any document — and the university whose teams use Royal Park, which the transcript renders as “College of Damon” — reported descriptively rather than corrected to a guess. The identity of Old Business A is likewise not established by the recording; this publication's September 2 brief recorded an Old Business A concerning a draft e-bike and e-scooter law, but the October discussion of a sight-distance analysis does not obviously match it, and the two are not equated here.
What this meeting is. Readers who skim the outcomes will see five refusals and conclude the board is unhelpful. That is not what the recording shows. This board spent two and a half hours explaining the federal rulebook it is bound by, volunteering remedies it is not obliged to offer, and twice inviting residents to organise the one thing — a speed-hump pilot — that would let it say yes in future. Where it refused, it gave numbers. That is reported at length above because the reasoning, not the result, is the useful part of the public record here.
Street validation. Run against the Town of Amherst street index: 20 candidates, 14 exact matches — Allenhurst Road, Cambridge Boulevard, Cricket Lane, Halston Parkway, Hunt Club Circle, King Place, Klein Road, Lafayette Boulevard, Main Street, New Road, Queen Place, Royal Parkway, Smith Road and Transit Road. The tool resolved the parallel road the board compared Halston against — rendered in the audio as “Mughal,” “Mugal” and “Mugo” — to Muegel Road as a single high-confidence candidate of the same street type, and that correction is applied. “East West Road” was flagged unknown and is a garbled description of the street’s orientation rather than a street name, so nothing was changed. No scanner address cross-reference is reported: the matters here concern intersections and street segments rather than individual properties.