'It's been a speedway:' Residents say 30 mph Brockton road plagued by crashes

BROCKTON – Charlie Brown lives in a white house at the corner of Belair and Prospect streets, just one block north of Pleasant Street. The three-way intersection outside his home – where the residential, one-way Prospect Street crosses the small road of Belair Street – boasts three stop signs.

Brown said that when he hears the loud bang of crashing cars, he doesn’t even get up to look out his window anymore – car crashes there are that common.

“It ain’t safe,” Brown said.

Multiple residents of Prospect Street – which runs parallel to the busy main road of Pleasant Street – have said drivers frequently speed through the intersection without stopping at the stop signs.

“It’s a small intersection,” said Ward 7 Brockton City Councilor Shirley Asack, who lives just up Prospect Street. “There are accidents there … there are people that are going through stop signs.”

According to crash reports obtained by The Enterprise from the Brockton Police Department, 13 car crashes were reported to police from March 2022 to July 2023. Some were resolved with an exchange of papers, while other cars’ airbags deployed and had to be towed from the scene.

“But I wouldn’t necessarily call it one of the more dangerous in the city,” Asack said. "I think this is a major problem throughout, not just in Brockton."

The speed limit is 30 mph, and the crash records say that most drivers told to the police when they arrived that they had stopped completely. Yet reports indicate people have gotten injured, and some were taken to the hospital.

“It’s a sad situation,” Brown said. “They don’t care.”

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What the neighbors say

Allen Morris, 78, has lived in the house next door to Brown for over 50 years, since he moved there in 1968. He currently lives there with his daughter Erica Cayer, 52.

Morris said that when the city repaved the potholed road roughly 10 years ago, the speeding problem started.

"This was country when I first moved here," he said. "Since that time, it's been a speedway."

"That stop sign, it's not even a suggestion," Cayer said. "Nobody's stopping there."

Morris and Cayer have talked to the city about the intersection a couple times. They've contacted Asack and gone before Brockton's traffic commission, particularly in 2021 as drivers were driving the wrong direction on Prospect Street.

"A subcommittee of the Traffic Commission visited the site and reported numerous signs were displayed," Brockton police spokesperson Darren Duarte said. "It recommended the city's Department of Public Works add another Wrong Way Red Sign and for police to conduct periodic traffic enforcement. The Traffic Commissioner reports both were completed."

In addition, the commission repaired a bent stop sign at the intersection, added a red stripe to another stop sign and police periodically monitor the intersection.

Police officials said no traffic studies have been conducted for the intersection, and little crash data has been recorded outside of the accident reports.

"To the residents that live there, obviously it's very important to them," Asack said. "It's very frustrating, but we're trying to find solutions to some of these issues but sometimes it's not that easy."

Enterprise staff writer Chris Butler can be reached by email at cbutler@enterprisenews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton residents decry frequent car crashes at Belair-Prospect St