Town Engineer Connor Knightly presents conceptual plans for the Piper Road redesign to the public during a Dec. 30 meeting.
Photo credit: West Springfield Town Media
WEST SPRINGFIELD — The town of West Springfield is currently in the conceptual phase of the proposed Piper Road redesign, which, when finished, will hopefully provide a much safer passageway for drivers and pedestrians.
During a two-hour public meeting on Dec. 30 at Town Hall, West Springfield’s Town Engineer Connor Knightly presented conceptual plans to residents at Town Hall that depicted a redesign of the intersection at Piper Road and Amostown Road as well as several safety improvements to the Piper Road corridor.
The town’s DPW has been working with the Pare Corporation of Holyoke on these improvements, according to Knightly.
“I am pleased that the DPW will be sharing our vision for improving safety along Piper Road, a vital artery in our city,” said Mayor William Reichelt in a statement. “This proposed redesign will not only make commuting smoother for our residents but will also enhance safety, reduce congestion, and improve the overall quality of life in our community.”
“Living in chaos”
For the past few years, the Piper Road corridor has seen speeding and safety concerns, including “more than a few accidents” at the intersection of Amostown and Piper, where utility poles have been struck by vehicles and at least a couple of pedestrians have been on the receiving end of some accidents in the corridor.
In December 2023, a 15-year-old male suffered minor injuries after he was struck at Amostown Road and Piper Road by a white SUV in a hit and run incident. A year prior to that, a 25-year-old woman and her dog were killed by a driver while walking in the area of Piper Road and Monastery Avenue.
Joyce Corbett, a Piper Road resident, has been advocating for better road safety in that corridor for almost two decades. At the Dec. 30 meeting, she showed the public a couple of videos of car crashes that have happened along the Piper Road corridor due to speeding and lack of awareness.
She noted that residents have experienced “post-traumatic stress disorder” from the accidents they have seen.
“Many of us have PTSD from the impacts that we hear and the bodies that we see, and the noise and the sound of 60 mph traffic going down our road,” Corbett said. “I don’t want to live this way anymore, so I want everybody in town to know we’re living in chaos.”
These compounded concerns have now forced the town to look at different ways to make this area safer.
In his Dec. 30 presentation to the public, Knightly presented traffic count data from 2022 that showed how 15% of drivers on Piper Road from that time period drove 43 mph or faster.
According to Knightly, the data was collected about 300 feet from the Monastery Avenue intersection.
“So, with that, and the high school being nearby, and the intersection being as problematic as it has been, that’s why we’re doing some focused efforts to do an improvement along the corridor; to improve both pedestrian and vehicular safety,” Knightly said.
Possible shared use path?
One such improvement presented by Knightly is a possible 10-foot-wide shared use path on the western side of the road where the high school is, and installation of sidewalk on the eastern side of the corridor. According to Knightly, the shared-use path, which would accommodate multi-directional cyclists, runners and those using other human-powered vehicles, would run the full length of the corridor.
Both the sidewalk and the shared-use path would terminate at the intersection of Morgan and Piper roads, according to the conceptual plan.
“The purpose behind that is to create an elevated passageway for cyclists that won’t be on the street,” Knightly said of the shared-use path plan.
According to Knightly, that conceptual plan would also include the installation of raised crosswalks across Piper Road “wherever possible,” including one by the West Springfield High School exit.
A couple of residents were not on board with the shared-use path concept, with one expressing concerns that too much of people’s property along the corridor would have to be taken to make room for the shared used path.
Knightly responded to this concern by saying that the intent with both conceptual plans for the corridor is to minimize or not require any permanent or temporary takings.
“The impact to private property in terms of permanent right-of-way should be minimal, if not nonexistent,” Knightly said.
Just the sidewalks?
The other conceptual plan Knightly presented to the public for the corridor is the creation of a 5-foot-wide bike lane in the road with a three-foot-wide striped buffer.
In the case of this design, Knightly said the town would maintain the 11-foot-wide travel lanes in the corridor and would utilize the existing paved surface for the re-striping.
Knightly said these plans would allow for very similar modifications as the first conceptual plan in terms of adding raised crosswalks wherever possible and taking cyclists off the roadway.
“Instead of there being a 10-foot-wide path on the western or high school side, you would see just a typical five-foot sidewalk,” Knightly said of this conceptual plan. “There would be sidewalk on both sides of the roadway for the entire corridor.”
This proposed plan, as well as the first one, will require the town to look at the possibility of adding a left turn lane at the northbound approach of the high school that simultaneously slows traffic and prevents any type of congestion from happening along the corridor.
“We do intend to slow traffic…we also don’t want to create undue amounts of congestion either,” Knightly said. “So that is something that we’re going to have to take into consideration when reimagining how this intersection with the high school entrance is going to look once we move into engineered design.”
Roundabout at Piper Road and Amostown Road intersection?
The other design piece discussed during the Dec. 30 meeting was the different roundabout and crosswalk concepts for the Piper Road and Amostown Road intersection.
The two possibilities presented by Knightly were a typical circular roundabout at the intersection or what is known as a peanut-shaped roundabout.
In response to these possibilities, a few residents wondered why streetlights could not be implemented at the intersection instead.
Knightly responded with the opinion that lights would not prevent someone form speeding, whereas an island would.
“If we put green lights through this intersection, nothing’s going to stop someone already going 45 [mph] from going 45 through the intersection,” Knightly said. “If it’s green and you’re traveling that fast, you’re going to be going that same speed, and our intent is to prevent that.”
Knightly also noted that although costs for a roundabout and traffic signals are fairly similar, the burden of maintaining a traffic light and its power bills would rest heavily on the town.
He said that if a traffic light stopped working, it could take a week or two before someone in the town addresses it.
“You put a roundabout into an intersection, you can’t break it,” he noted.
One other resident expressed concerns about the proximity of her family’s driveway at 75 Piper Rd. to a possible roundabout, saying that it is already dangerous to go in and out of the driveway.
Knightly responded by saying that he prefers the peanut design over the circular one because the bulbous ends of the peanut design act as deflection points for vehicles coming into the intersection.
Other residents, meanwhile, questioned whether it was safe for emergency vehicles to pass through the roundabout. Knightly said that the deigns made it so those vehicles could pass by tracking onto the roundabout’s island.
“The front of the curb will be flush with the ground, and it’ll come up at a 25 to 30 degree angle that will allow for larger buses, emergency vehicles [and] school buses to get around,” Knightly said.
Next steps
None of the plans presented are set in stone, according to Knightly, who noted that the town is not at the construction design phase yet. The Dec. 30 meeting was merely to show possible improvements and to gather input from residents before the town moves into the next phase.
Knightly said during the meeting that there is no date set for when construction design plans will be finished.
In a statement about this upcoming project, Mayor William Reichelt said that he is “pleased” with the DPW for sharing their vision with residents for improving safety along the corridor.
“This proposed redesign will not only make commuting smoother for our residents but will also enhance safety, reduce congestion, and improve the overall quality of life in our community,” Reichelt said.
