Residents spoke with members of the Toole Design team and asked questions about the project and its final design.
Reminder Publishing photo by Trent Levakis
NORTHAMPTON — Residents squeezed inside 180 Main St. on July 29 to see final design plans for the upcoming $43.3 million Picture Main Street project that will rehabilitate downtown.
The event showcased the 100% design plans submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation earlier this month by the city, along with new renderings of the project. The July 29 event was an opportunity for the public to connect with the Toole Design team and Office of Planning and Sustainability Director Carolyn Misch about the project.
“We submitted the 100% plans to MassDOT, and we always had planned that once we had something else to showcase then we would do a series of public engagements. Now that we’ve done that, we now have the opportunity, and this will continue into the fall,” Misch told Reminder Publishing.
Misch explained that these final design plans are not much different from the plans that are already well-documented. She said that everything from the 25% to the 100% design process involved tweaking and adjusting.
“Making sure everything fits, doing the fine-tune grating,” she added. “I wouldn’t say that there’s a big change, but just more detail has been added to it.”
Eversource gas lines and right-of-way boundaries will be finalized so that in 2027, water and sewer upgrades on each block of Main Street can be completed. In 2028, plans are for the curb line movement process to begin, along with street grading, and coordinated communication with business owners about when construction will occur.
The project design calls for three vehicle travel lanes, expanded sidewalks, separated bike lanes and a mix of parallel and angled parking. The final design is the result of shared ground between two commonly voiced priorities: preserving angled parking and providing space for expanded sidewalks and separated bike lanes, according to Misch.
Parallel spaces will drop from 99 to 68, and angled spaces will decrease from 57 to 32. The goal of decreased parking is to improve visibility at crosswalks, create safer bicycle facilities, provide more space for people walking and gathering, and build dedicated turn lanes at key intersections.
Between Masonic Street and Gothic Street, the final design illustrates three marked vehicle lanes, including a dedicated left turn lane, angled parking, separated sidewalk-level bike lanes, sidewalks ranging from 6 to 35 feet in width and curb extensions to narrow most crossings. The additional sidewalk width along the street aims to provide significant space for public space, outdoor dining and commerce, extensive greenery and trees, snow storage and green infrastructure.
At the signalized intersections of New South Street and State Street, and King Street and Pleasant Street, additional vehicle travel lanes will be added to manage turning movements while maintaining on-street parking and separated bike lanes. Additionally, the entire corridor will also be brought into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, ensuring that Main Street is accessible and inviting to people of all ages and abilities.
Defined travel and turn lanes aim to reduce confusion and common crash risks, while shorter crossings, improved visibility, accessible curb ramps, and smaller intersections aim to make it easier to commute through downtown in different capacities.
The city is projected to spend about $11.8 million in total on the project. Approximately $31.5 million of the project will be covered through state and federal allocation.
Opponents of the project have long debated its costs and if those costs were the best use of the city’s funding. There have also been shared worries about increased traffic during construction, the negative impact the project could have on downtown businesses, and how the project will protect pedestrians and cyclists. The pop-up event included more of these conversations between the public and project leaders.
MassDOT will conduct a thorough review of the plans over the coming months, and two public meetings will be held in the fall, allowing community members to learn more about the final design and share feedback before the project moves forward. This will include an open house event about the project in September, and a MassDOT-hosted public information meeting sometime this fall.
Substantial construction activity will begin in spring 2028, beginning with one construction season of utility work followed by four seasons of work concentrated in various locations in the project area.
As construction draws closer, the city plans to share updates about the schedule, access and what the community can expect at each stage.
Misch said that a clear communication channel between the city and the business owners has already been established.
“We have developed and are working with this campaign called POP [Pardon Our Progress], which is linked on the city’s web page and it’s really an effort to jumpstart a channel of communication between the community, the business owners and the city, that we can use with the contractors and the public liaison so that we have regular weekly updates that we can blast to people,” Misch explained. “We will have those frequent updates, so we’ve started to develop the framework for that so we can make sure that we’re communicating regularly with everyone.”
By 2029, the project is planned to enter into its final additions phase, which includes final street paving and striping, sign installations, landscaping and plantings and additional close-out items to complete the project.
“The plans that were submitted to MassDOT include a phasing plan, and the first phase will be replacing the water and sewer lines. It’s in sort of discrete areas in the street. Then the next phase would be starting on the east end of Main Street and then moving to the West End,” Misch added.
For more information on the project https://www.northamptonma.gov/2547/Picture-Main-Street.
