Pickerel Pond Road speed, weight limits reduced

LACONIA — The speed limit along Pickerel Pond Road will be reduced and a seasonal weight limit implemented after residents asked city councilors to consider safety and long-term maintenance there. 

Councilors voted unanimously Monday night to reduce the speed limit along the partly-unpaved road, which is quite narrow and winding in some places, to 25 miles per hour. The speed limit on Pickerel Pond Road was previously 35 miles per hour. 

The weight limit was reduced from 26,000 pounds to 20,000 pounds during the spring thaw. Companies who make deliveries to addresses on Pickerel Pond Road will need to apply for a permit to the city if their truck is over that weight limit.

Numerous residents of Pickerel Pond attended a public hearing during the meeting and told councilors they’d like to see the speed limit along the road reduced and truck through-traffic limited.

Noting the road, which bridges a wooded gap between Meredith Center and Parade roads, provides a cut-through for drivers traveling to Endicott Street North, and residents said walking along it can be dangerous with cars and trucks traversing at high rates of speed. 

Dave Ouellette of 298 Pickerel Pond told councilors he supported a decrease in the speed limit there. 

“The speed limit, I would like to see it decreased for the obvious,” Ouelette said. “There are no sidewalks, it's a gravel road now, partly. When you look at 35 miles per hour, in most cases it sounds slow, but you’re actually traveling 51 feet in a second.”

Ouellette said his neighbors agree the speed should be reduced. 

“I think that the consensus from the people that live on the road, 25 [miles per hour] would be ideal for that road,” Ouellette said. “At 25 miles an hour, that’s 36 feet per second. Still a lot can happen.”

GPS systems instruct drivers to take Pickerel Pond Road to access Endicott Street North, Ouellette said. 

“The other thing that I’d like taken into consideration — if you were to go over onto anywhere on [State Route] 104 and you type in on your GPS, type in ‘Endicott Street North,’ it puts you down Pickerel Pond Road,” Ouellette said. “It’s a cut-through, it’s a fair amount of traffic, especially in the summertime. With that in mind, I think that reducing the speed limit would be in order.”

Jennifer Kreitzer of 316 Pickerel Pond brought the issue to city council earlier this year. She attended the meeting Monday night and asked councilors to reduce truck traffic along the road. Kreitzer noted a city staff report stated there were not any speed-related traffic accidents along Pickerel Pond in the most recent five-year period, but said an accident occurred Aug. 2, which she didn’t know if it was speed-related. 

“I can’t [say] whether the recent accident on Aug. 2 was speed-related, but there was an accident Aug. 2 that caused quite a bit of damage. Looks like maybe a vehicle bounced off a couple of the stone walls, so there’s a lot of big stones from the walls that come down the road,” Kreitzer said. “Subsequently, that’s decreased those sections of the road so now the narrow road has become narrower.”

Kreitzer said her principal concern regarding the road is the damage heavy trucks may do to its integrity, not the issue of speeding. 

“I don’t know that the speed is a concern as much as the truck traffic. I feel like the trucks that drive the road are typically respectful of the speed limit,” she said. “My concern was the trucks causing more degradation to the road now that it’s no longer a paved road. Obviously if there’s weight limits posted that will hopefully mitigate the issue.”

Ward 1 Councilor Bruce Cheney said a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit is appropriate for Pickerel Pond and he supported the change.

“It is curvy, in places, it is rough in places,” Cheney said. “I’m sure that’s a reasonable speed limit for that road.”

And Public Works Director Wes Anderson said overweight delivery trucks would need to request a permit to enter the road for either the season or for a particular trip. That’s how oil and propane deliveries are managed during times of restricted weight limits.

Councilors approved the changes unanimously.