The way traffic consultant Steve Ferranti sees it, road design is no longer just about moving traffic. It's about building communities.

He can think of excellent examples where that has been done locally. University Avenue in Rochester sits at the top of his list. Traffic engineers had planned to turn the street into a four-lane thoroughfare. Instead, the city worked with residents and business owners and developed a design that combines parking, traffic-control features, and public art to create a cohesive neighborhood.

Ferranti can also think of a current case where that's not happening: the state Department of Transportation's Clover Street-Jefferson Road project in Pittsford.

"If it's not widely accepted by the community, that tells me something is awry," says Ferranti, whose firm, SRF & Associates, was hired by the town to help study the Clover-Jefferson proposal.

Pittsford residents and officials locked in a dispute with the DOT. The agency is proposing two through lanes, a left-turn lane, and a right-turn lane approaching the intersection from all directions. It also calls for some sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities.

The DOT says the Clover-Jefferson plan is needed to address dangerous conditions at the intersection. The accident rate there is above average, says department spokesperson Lori Maher.

But residents and officials say the department's plans will create an unsightly --- and unnecessary --- expanse of blacktop in a residential and recreational area.

"I think what's been proposed changes community character," says town Supervisor Bill Carpenter. The town, as well as residents, are trying to get the DOT to stop the project and reconsider the design.

Cynthia Jonsen-Brown, who chairs the Clover Street Preservation Association, a citizens group formed to protest the Clover-Jefferson project, is critical of the DOT'sassessment that the intersection is dangerous. The DOT, she says, is using flawed accident statistics. And Supervisor Carpenter argues that the accidents are largely rear-end collisions, which suggest driver error, not infrastructure problems.

Pittsford is not the only Monroe County suburb that will see more asphalt in the future. This year, the DOT will reconfigure the intersection of Turk Hill Road and Route 31 in Perinton. Sometime in the future, the DOT wants to expand a well-traveled section of Jefferson Road in Henrietta. That plan is in the early stages.

Last year, Monroe County completed a slightly widened section of Elmwood Avenue near Twelve Corners in Brighton. That project had also come under fire from residents, who said a wider road would detract from the residential character of the neighborhood.

Joni Monroe, executive director of the Rochester Regional Community Design Center, says the Pittsford project is one of the more recent examples of the disconnect between the DOT and local communities. She points to the widening of Ridge Road in Greece as another.

There is a state push to have road projects designed to fit with the community, she says, but "I'm just not seeing it out here in our locality."

Critics say that building bigger roads and intersections only leads to other wide roads or intersections. Or the creation of traffic headaches that didn't exist before.

"We solve problems short term and create new ones five to eight years down the road," says Jonsen-Brown.

DOT spokesperson Lori Maher says intersections are under constant evaluation and are monitored for accident rates and efficiency. An intersection can have a stop sign installed one year only to have a traffic light replace it a few years later. And after that, a turn lane could be added, and so on. The DOT makes those decisions based on statistics, observation, and accepted planning practices, she says.

But Ferranti points out that in some cases, engineers and planners are downsizing roads. He again references Rochester's University Avenue.

Projects like the Clover-Jefferson intersection can be both a cause and a result of sprawl. As roads and intersections are built out, they create the capacity for more traffic. High-volume roads are a key factor in attracting big-box stores and developers.

Pittsford town and village leaders are also concerned about how the changes at Clover and Jefferson will affect two other intersections farther east on Jefferson. If more cars are passing through the Clover intersection in one light cycle, more cars will stack up at the Jefferson-Sutherland Street and Jefferson-Main Street intersections in the village, they argue. The town hired Ferranti's firm to build a computerized model using actual traffic counts to show the effect the Clover-Jefferson changes would have.

The DOT says that tweaking the timing of lights could help alleviate backup at the Sutherland and Main intersections, but town and village officials don't buy it.

The Jefferson-Sutherland and Jefferson-Main intersections, both of which are surrounded by historic homes, would be tough to physically reconfigure, says village Mayor Bob Corby. The village conducted its own traffic and street design study, and Corby says village residents don't want larger roads.

While the Clover-Jefferson intersection is not in Pittsford Village, town and village officials consider the area immediately west of it a village gateway. The Jefferson-Clover project's scale is inappropriate, says Corby.

"Volume is not the only priority in this community," he says.

In the Pittsford project, left-hand turn signals would be a simple fix, says Joni Monroe. The DOT could see how that worked before spending millions on a road project. That solution also has the backing of town officials. In fact, for years officials and residents have been calling for the DOT to install turn arrows at Clover and Jefferson as well as at Clover and French.

"There are so many road projects that are needed," says Monroe. "Why not take the dollars and put them some other place?"