During the past two weeks, this page has contained three letters to the editor advocating for the installation of a light at the intersection of Island Crest Way and Merrimount. It’s time to add some balance to the public dialogue, as well as some candor.

The question of how to make permanent improvements to this intersection has been on the table for many, many months. After consulting with its traffic management experts, as well as holding public deliberations and a public workshop, the City Council last summer opted for putting ICW on a “road diet” between Island Park Elementary and the intersection. The traffic light was fully considered then, but was rejected.

The Council’s decision prompted an e-mail and phone-call campaign seeking reconsideration. In response, the Council created yet another public forum — a “citizens’ study group” — to discuss the issue. I participated in that group, as did a dozen other Islanders from an array of backgrounds and with an array of viewpoints. Collectively, we looked at a number of design options and weighed them in terms of their contributions to safety, traffic throughput, and fiscal responsibility. The city’s traffic management experts assisted us in visualizing the different possibilities and in understanding the trade-offs.

The traffic light option was fully considered, but was rejected by the majority of the group. The majority strongly endorsed a road diet. No single proposal involving installation of a traffic light garnered more than three supporting votes.

On March 3, the city is hosting an open meeting at the Community Center to lay out the different options that the study group considered, plus the general nature of those conversations. Anyone interested in understanding the details of this issue — as opposed to relying on one’s own gut instinct on how to best manage traffic — should attend.

The discussion should lay bare, at a minimum, three factors that reinforce my view that a road diet is the right outcome. First, on safety, the road diet will enable installation of several “pedestrian havens” in the middle of the road, along the length of the Island Park-to-Merrimount corridor (0.7 miles). The four-lane, light-only option lacks this important feature.

Second, on throughput, almost all of the options considered would lead to the same result. Yes, light or no light, average travel times during peak hours would be within seconds of each other. Opponents of the road diet have difficulty comprehending this point. They seem to be suggesting that the City Council — and other citizens — should rely on their own, amateur intuitions about traffic flows, rather than the models built by professional traffic managers.

Finally, on cost, the traffic light option just does not cut it, especially at a time when tax revenues are dropping. The road diet costs around $500,000. A traffic light costs about three times that much. And at the last meeting of the citizens’ group, we learned that installing a light also might require the legal “taking” of up to three nearby homes. A participant on our panel indicated that each of those homes is worth about $1.5 million. Fully loaded, the cost of a traffic light could approach $6 million.

Unlike others who have written on this topic recently, I do not pretend that there is a majority of Islanders clamoring for the Council to do one thing or the other. As the citizen panel demonstrated, viewpoints on this issue can be strong and remarkably different. The one thing that I feel comfortable asserting is that there is strong consensus that the status quo is unsustainable. The Council must act. If you want to fully understand the factors that are playing into the Council’s decision, please attend the March 3 meeting.

Marc Berejka