West Springfield’s Main Street, as seen on Aug. 28.
Reminder Publishing photo by Tyler Lederer
WEST SPRINGFIELD — After settling issues with the funding, surveyors should be out on Main Street soon, taking the first step in a project to improve the Main Street corridor between Park Avenue and New Bridge Street.
“We recognize that Main Street does require some long-term maintenance and repair,” said Town Engineer Connor Knightly.
Ideas for the “Main Street Complete Streets Improvements,” as it’s called in the town’s Community Mitigation Fund application, include repaving the much-patched road surface.
“That corridor has had a lot of utility work done on it, which obviously is not the greatest thing for paved surfaces,” said Knightly.
Also on the table are improvements for pedestrians, like curb bumpouts and raised pedestrian crossings. Both make pedestrians more visible to cars and the latter forces drivers to slow down. Other improvements could include reconstructing wheelchair ramps, and flashing beacon lights at some crosswalks, said Knightly.
The town is also thinking of regrading the currently flat road for better drainage during storms. Knightly said it’s hard to drain a flat road, especially when installing improvements that “alter the physical plane of the corridor.”
Unlike some other complete streets projects, the plan for Main Street doesn’t include anything specifically for cyclists at this time.
The first step in the process is taking a survey of the corridor. To pay for this, the town initially applied for $218,500 in casino mitigation funds from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. To receive the funds, the town had to prove a connection between the project and the impact of MGM Springfield.
“Main Street is primarily connected to Park Avenue and Memorial Avenue,” said Knightly. “The idea there was that both Park Avenue and Memorial are considered travel routes to and from the casino, and since residents, pedestrians, motor vehicle operators cannot exit Main Street without going through either one of those travel routes, that it would have qualified for consideration.”
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission denied the funding.
On Aug. 27, Knightly applied to the state Department of Transportation to reappropriate $211,000 in Chapter 90 funds intended for paving projects that “didn’t quite work out,” he said, to Main Street. On Aug. 30, he got the approval.
“We can start the process of making it a capital project,” he said.
Had the application been denied, Knightly would’ve had to request money from the Town Council.
Knightly said he hopes the surveyors, the Beta Group, will begin soon, to avoid conflicting with the Big E starting Sept. 13. The survey won’t take too long, he said, although the town might have to wait until after the fair.
Knightly could not provide a cost estimate of the project, but he did say it will be much higher than $200,000.
“It would be a significant project, especially if you consider doing the entire corridor at once,” he said.
Being so early in the process, Knightly also couldn’t provide a project timeline, yet. Construction, he said, hinges on whether the town gets funding for the planning phase.
During that time, he said, designers will make their recommendations to the town, which it will use to come up with a preliminary plan, then conduct a public meeting. Afterwards, the town will instruct the designer to create a bid package.
Though the name of the project comes from MassDOT’s Complete Streets Funding Program, it will likely be the responsibility of the town, Knightly said. The project is intended to incorporate the philosophy of complete streets, which aims to make streets more accessible to all modes of transportation.
