The driveway to Shrewsbury High School may soon become a public road.
By Laura Hayes, Contributing Writer
SHREWSBURY — Officials want to make the driveway to Shrewsbury High School a public street after a student was recently cited for speeding.
During the May 6 Planning Board meeting, Town Planner Bernard Cahill said the ticket was denied in court because the winding, roughly half-mile long driveway wasn’t a road in which the police had jurisdiction to issue citations.
“This is simply to make the road…where all the high school students drive and the buses go, an actual legal road so the police officers can start handing out those tickets,” Cahill said.
He added that were the driveway to become a public road, Shrewsbury would then be able to apply for state and federal funds to fix it.
The driveway runs from Holden Street to Cyprus Avenue and will now become an extension of Cyprus Avenue, assuming a future Town Meeting accepts the decision.
As the warrant is already closed, this item will not be discussed at Town Meeting later this month.
Town Engineer Andy Truman said the driveway going up to Shrewsbury High School is not a public street, despite being maintained as a public street and plowed by the town.
“As it’s not a public street, enforcement becomes an issue,” he said.
Speeding is an issue on the driveway, he added.
Truman said the Shrewsbury Police Department and the high school asked to make the driveway a public street.
From here, Truman said the process contains two parts — one, create the right-of-way, which is what the Planning Board did as part of approving the plans, and, two, accept the street during a Town Meeting.
