City Councilor Sam Shumsky talks about the proposed application for a truck stop on Burnett Road during the City Council meeting on Nov. 19.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
CHICOPEE — During the City Council meeting on Nov. 19, multiple residents wearing a “Stop the Truck Stop” sticker used the public comment portion of the meeting to speak against a proposed truck stop that has already been voted against once.
Two new applications for a service station license and amended fuel storage license were both applied for by Pilot Travel Centers LLC at 357 Burnett Rd., next to the Pride Travel Center.
Back in 2022, the same company proposed a plan to build a 16-pump gas station for vehicles and a seven-position gas station for tractor-trailers. The property would also include a Wendy’s restaurant and other amenities such as a convenience store and showers for truckers.
Many residents, especially those in Ward 6, or who live by Burnett Road, spoke against the proposed plan due the amount of traffic and accidents endured on that road already.
The original plan was unanimously voted “no” by the City Council and the decision was upheld in the Hampden Superior Court after the applicant for appeal.
The new application submission remains the same as the one in 2022.
Many of the residents during public comment talked about the horrific accidents they have already seen on Burnett Road, the traffic and their hesitation to allow their kids to walk on that Burnett Road to get to school.
They also said they think the truck stop will only add to the traffic on Interstate 90 and Interstate 291.
At the same City Council meeting, the council unanimously approved sending a resolution to MassDOT requesting safety and traffic calming improvements on the entrance ramp onto the end of I-291 from Shawnigan Drive leading to Burnett Road.
The entrance ramp has become an area of concern due to excessive speeding and safety hazards and residents, commuters and local businesses have reported significant safety concerns to high speeds, near-misses and traffic flow issues.
The hope is for MassDOT to conduct a comprehensive safety review of the entrance ramp and evaluate potential improvements aimed at reducing traffic speeds.
Ward 6 City Councilor Sam Shumsky talked about his desire for the resolution and that this area is already a safety concern before a potential truck stop is added.
He said, “As you have heard from residents tonight and I’m sure you’ve heard and experienced them in the past, this is a very dangerous intersection to the point where myself and many others will go purposely around at times to avoid going onto this intersection. I don’t who designed this, I don’t know why it was engineered the way it was, but it needs to be looked at.”
With the new applications being submitted and multiple concerns over the previous truck stop application, Shumsky made sure to let the residents know about the upcoming agenda item on the agenda.
Residents at the meeting and on social media complained that he let people know too late as he made a post on Facebook only a few hours ahead of the meeting.
Residents will have another chance to voice their concern as both applications were voted by the City Council to be sent to the License Committee for a public hearing.
Although many City Councilors expressed that they saw public safety concerns with the plan, they still voted for it to receive a public hearing at subcommittee.
Ward 8 Gary Labrie explained, “I’ve been on the board 11 years; I agree that there’s big safety problems there and hopefully they rectify it but we’ve always, as far as I can recall, we’ve never not sent something to committee. We never killed it, that I can recall, and I could be wrong, on the floor. We have to give other residents a chance to come in here from other parts of the city and give their two cents.”
Ward 4 City Councilor George Balakier said those unable to make the City Council meeting to express their concerns will have another chance.
He said, “I am concerned about public safety as well and I know that there were a lot of people that had an opportunity to speak this evening but for those who are not able to come tonight, they will have another opportunity at the License Committee meeting. We will take it up in committee and it should be an interesting meeting.”
Shumsky stated that he will find other alternative ways besides Facebook to alert the media about important meeting dates coming up.
The date had not been set as of press time.
