TURNER – Residents of Back Cove Drive, an upscale neighborhood near the Turner-Greene bridge, are asking officials to close a portion of their road that links them to the Cobb Road.

“I moved there (to Back Cove) because it was a quiet neighborhood,” resident Melissa Sherman said. “Now there is so much traffic and it is going way too fast.”

Residents contend that traffic has increased for two reasons – commercial use and teenagers taking shortcuts and having races. A large portion of Back Cove Road is paved and when created, ended at a dead-end turnaround. An unpaved portion, connecting it to the Cobb Road, was then opened by the town for reasons of fire and rescue vehicle access and egress. It is this unpaved portion that residents are petitioning to have closed or closed to regular vehicle traffic by using breakaway gates.

Several residents of the area told officials that teenagers meet at the local store near an intersection of the two roads and race in opposite directions around the loop to see who can get back to the store first. They say law enforcement officials have been called, given license plate numbers and the only response has been “no response.”

Town Manager Jim Catlin had made a previous request to the state to lower the speed limit from the current 35 mph on both roads to 25 mph. However, the state which sets speed limits on both state-owned and locally-owned roads, said “no” to the request, Catlin said.

The commercial traffic is originating from a junkyard owned by Harry Williams on the Cobb Road. It has been occurring recently due to the crushing of cars and their transport out of the junkyard. This activity, according to Dot Frechette, a friend of Williams, only occurs once or twice a year and is not an ongoing or daily problem.

Selectmen instructed Catlin to investigate the cost and feasibility of breakaway gates on the unpaved portion connecting Back Cove to the Cobb Road. They also asked him to check into the laws regarding the installation of speed bumps. Sherman said there are currently approximately 30 young children in the neighborhood.

“Do we have to wait to do something until one of them gets hit on their bike?” Sherman asked.