The biggest problem is that it is a blocker road for people trying to get to and off of 95. Instead of dispersing into a street road network off of the exit, the presence of the North Burial Ground and the old Drive-In (now Job Lot etc.) effectively mean that all of this traffic has to come onto North Main and then use those choke points to get onto Branch Ave./Smithfield Ave to get to/off the highway.

The second biggest problem is that North Main itself is a stroad not a street. It was designed to bring traffic (auto and trolley) from downtown to the stores on the Pawtucket border quickly, when there were stores there. It is too wide and no matter how many 25 mph signs you put up noone is going to go that speed on that long straightaway with wide lanes. The road design itself induces speed. And you can tsk and tut the evil people who speed but road design is part of it, this is proven by nearly every traffic study.

The third problem is that Miriam is between North Main and Hope instead of North Main and I-95. Which in itself is just a figment of the real problem which is the Frankenstein approach to "planning" in most of the city (natural given the age and the fact that RI was wealthiest at the absolute worst time in US history to be wealthy, at least if you believe in urban living and fewer cars)

The fourth problem is that RI (to be fair it is not unique to here) traffic engineers think the way to solve every traffic light problem is to make the lights longer - this queues more traffic and makes it more likely that people will speed to try and make a light rather than get stopped for a full 2 minutes like at the Branch Ave light. A second problem this causes is traffic slugs, where you get a giant parade of traffic every turn of the light, which makes people on side streets jump at the opportunity to get on the road ahead of the slug.

A subset that falls under 3 of these is that people abuse the hell out of the right on red. Whether it's not actually stopping, not looking when they even bother to stop, etc.

Generally speaking, on top of all this, RIDOT is not interested at all in anything other than throughput numbers. At least, this is all they seem to talk about. So roads like this that are state roads are not going to get pedestrian attention. Noone likes sitting in traffic but noone talks about reducing the number of cars, it is all talk about letting cars get from place to place faster. Alviti would pave the entire state if he could tell people you could get across RI 25% faster.

For the record, the relevant city councilors all know how bad North Main is and talk about it all the time if you actually engage with them.