Emily and Ian West bought their Concord home just over a decade ago on Iron Works Road, thrilled that they could look out over Russell Martin Park from their front porch, and that the backyard sloped down to a charmingly swampy bog, a natural “magical oasis.” 

“We both grew up in small towns, and we wanted that feel, coming from Boston,” Emily West said.

On Sundays around 3 p.m., though, their road — a cut-through from Exit 2 on Interstate 89 to Interstate 93 that avoids the interchange and consistent traffic jams — becomes a regular stream of out-of-state license plates, RVs and, for half the year, boat trailers.

“It just changes,” Emily West said.

Weekend bumper-to-bumper backups on the interstate passing by the Capital City are nothing new — but if it feels like those backups have gotten worse in the last few years, that’s because they have. Increased use of navigation apps as a way to sneak around slowdowns means more cars, and even more back-ups, on residential streets that online maps see as a “shortcut.” 

Average annual daily traffic on the interstate has not reached where it was before the pandemic, according to Bill Lambert, a traffic safety and highway design engineer with the state Department of Transportation. But, he said, “weekend traffic is higher.”

“There’s a percentage of people that are working virtually during the week, but they’re still looking to get to the White Mountains and the lakes,” he said.

That means a greater dispersal of people making the trek north — people can leave earlier on Fridays and some make the trip on Thursday night. Sunday afternoon, with everyone returning South, doesn’t get that spread.

“It always bottlenecks here in Concord,” said Deputy Chief of Police John Thomas. “It’s been like that for many, many, many years.”

In the last two years though, Thomas said, “it’s really changed.”

“There’s an uptick of vehicles cutting through what you would call residential neighborhoods,” he said. “Especially when there’s a backup on 93.”

It affects South End streets like the Wests’ and places like the roundabout at Mountain Road and East Side Drive.  

“I think, anecdotally, anybody that lives around Concord has seen some of the results of diversion,” Lambert said

Maybe the starkest example of that shift is at Exit 17 E, going south, he said. That ramp, a “semi-clover leaf”, is normally a low-volume exit, maybe 260–300 cars in a day. On a Sunday afternoon, he said, “it probably gets 260 vehicles or more in an hour, because it’s a steady stream of traffic.”

Lindsay Gray knows that GPS apps route drivers passing through the east side down her street — because hers does it all the time. Even when going from a lunch stop on Loudon Road back to her office, Gray’s GPS has suggested she cut through the unlined, no sidewalk straightaway of Broken Ground Drive where she lives.

Gray and Nate Veilleux bought their home in Concord about a year ago, and they’ve been surprised at how much traffic they get on their street.

“I get why people speed through,” Veilleux said. “It’s a straight shot.”

For Gray, the Wests, and beyond, the deluge doesn’t just make it hard to get out of their driveway on a Sunday. It’s a safety concern.

In most places along these diversion paths people walking their dogs, riding their bikes or going for a run don’t have a sidewalk. And because drivers are seeking refuge from a traffic clog, headed home on a Sunday night, they’re also in a rush.

The I-93 Bow Concord Improvement Project, one phase of a multi-million-dollar effort by the state to improve sections of the interstate, plans to add an additional travel lane in each direction through Concord, and to make improvements to specific exits, including exits 12, 15, and the 89-93 interchange. Lambert, the state traffic engineer, said the project’s leaders are studying diversion as part of their planning process, and it’s likely widening would ease the backups that lead to diversion.

City leaders last got an update on the project in August, 2022 and another is expected in October, according to the Department of Transportation. The state’s project manager, Nathan Ayotte, did not respond to an interview request.

That massive construction undertaking isn’t expected to break ground, let alone pose any relief on traffic, for years.

In the meantime, residents are hoping mitigation could come from the city.

Veilleux has asked Concord to study whether speed bumps or tables could work on their street, though their request is still moving through city committees.

Similarly, the Wests first reached out to City Hall in 2019, asking if the 30 mph speed limit on their street could be reduced to 25 mph. But the onset of the pandemic not long after made a useful traffic study impossible. They reached out again this past spring.

When Concord Police are available to station along the road, that helps with speed, Emily West said. “But that feels like such a temporary solution.”

The Wests know they can’t stop traffic re-routing down their street, and there’s only so much they can do about speed.

“We knew full well we were close to the highway,” Ian West said. “It’s the price you pay.”

But they’re hoping the city could put in a sidewalk. Veilleux and Gray do, too.

The city’s Traffic Operations Committee reviewed the Wests’ request this summer and recognized their concerns as tied to a broader issue in “gateway areas” in the Concord. Iron Works road ranks low on the pecking order for city sidewalk projects. Both a fresh evaluation of that priority list and a broader study of speed and diversion in “gateway areas” would be part of the city’s master plan update, an endeavor city leaders have been discussing with urgency for more than a year but are yet to begin.

The city manager’s office ignored repeated requests to interview Concord’s traffic engineer about how the city deals with diversion, only referring the Monitor to a report from the traffic committee.

“It is recommended that a ‘city-wide speed study’ be a discussion point in the upcoming master plan update,” the report states. “The Committee does not recommend an isolated study for Iron Works Road prior to that effort, as speed concerns are prevalent, city-wide.”

In suburbs of major cities with diversion woes, from Medford, Mass. to Leonia, N.J., a common tactic is to close certain streets and neighborhoods to non-resident traffic during certain hours of the day, like rush hour.

Concord hasn’t considered that, according to Thomas, and it’s not a likely option.

“I mean, how would you even enforce that?” he said. “Traffic is a very finicky type of thing. It’s difficult to police.”

Part of the issue — likely to the consternation of both drivers and residents — is that people heading to the lakes and mountains will always pass through Concord, Thomas said. Southbound drivers will try to escape off Exit 17, only to get back on at Exit 16.

Even those avoiding where I-89 meets I-93, driving past the Wests’ house, have to get back on the highway at Exit 12, often the heart of the bottleneck.

“People love living here. We love living here,” Emily West said. “It would be great if people just didn’t make that turn off Clinton Street.”