Carbonear signs not with the times

By Craig Westcott/November 4, 2021

If you are one of those Carbonear residents who believe Furey’s Lane is a two-way street, you’re not alone in being wrong.

Now councilor Chris O’Grady is hoping to get better signage on the Irishtown Road end of the street to better alert motorists not to drive down the one-way lane from the wrong direction.

O’Grady raised the issue at last week’s public council meeting on behalf of a resident of the area.

Furey’s Lane starts on St. Clare Avenue, where you are allowed to enter the street, and winds, narrowly, towards Irishtown Road, intersecting with Dunphy’s Lane along the way. The problem is that some cars coming from the Dunphy’s Lane area enter Furey’s Lane and head in the wrong direction.

“There is a tremendous amount of traffic that comes in and turns right and goes the wrong way on that street all the time,” said O’Grady. “There is a sign there that just has a circle with a line across, so he (the resident) is wondering if we can put something on that sign that says, ‘No Entry,’ or something to reinforce the fact, because people are coming around the corner and the sign is kind of in the trees, and they are heading out Furey’s Lane when you’re not allowed, because that is a one-way street going the other way. It’s a problem for him because when he comes out of his driveway to turn right, it’s a very narrow lane and cars are coming towards him.”

Public works committee chairman, Deputy Mayor Sam Slade, suggested the town’s director of operations check it out.

“There is a tremendous amount of ATV traffic there too, because they cut through there to cut the corner off and not have to go down around the Knights of Columbus,” O’Grady added. “And they’re going the wrong way too even though they’re totally illegal anyway. It’s something to look at… Because he says there is a real problem there all day long, (that) there are cars cutting through there. I’m just throwing it out there.”

Later in the meeting, O’Grady introduced another problem involving confusing signage and streets, this time affecting a couple of houses on Joe Taylor’s Lane.

“Prior to the LeMarchant Road extension, Joe Taylor’s Lane went farther out, and when they extended LeMarchant Road, it kind of cut that piece off so there’s a couple of houses that are really on LeMarchant Road Extension, but their civic address still shows Joe Taylor’s Lane,” said O’Grady. “They’re having issues with couriers and stuff not being able to find their houses.”

Councilor Danielle Doyle suggested the issue is actually even worse than that, noting twice emergency responders have had trouble locating addresses on that part of the lane.

O’Grady pointed out that while the best solution might appear to be to change the civic addresses for those houses to LeMarchant Road Extension, that might actually cause even further problems for the residents, especially if any of them have mortgages, because it would necessitate changing IDs, and other documents.

“And they weren’t asking for that,” said O’Grady, “they’re just asking for another (street) sign, so we’re going to have a further look and see if that’s the best recommendation. I know they have something there themselves – one lady has it all marked up there now for one of the properties.”

Councilor Peter Snow said he drove down to take a look. “I think the signage is fairly reasonable,” he said, admitting it looks like the houses should be part of LeMarchant Road Extension. “But what I thought about was the mortgages and changing their address and all their bills and their IDs and everything and that’s quite a headache.”

Snow suggested the Town move the sign that’s in the area now.

Doyle said that might further confuse emergency responders into thinking that that part of Joe Taylor’s Lane is actually LeMarchant Road Extension.

Mayor Frank Butt asked the Town’s director of operations to look into the situation.