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Date: 9/5/2023
SUNDERLAND — Some time ago, Daniel Murphy, the newest member of the Selectboard, got married and went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While living in the old North Village Apartments, the university housing for married students, he noticed a maintenance road running behind his apartment.
Nowadays — as a member of the board — he thinks about transportation. He remembered that underutilized road and thought about how it might benefit his constituents.
“It basically comes up the west side of UMass, the maintenance road, by university villages and the old North Village,” Murphy said. “There’s an electrical easement that keeps going. It goes over a couple small creeks and pops out on Meadow Street.”
Murphy informed the board that a corridor for mixed use transportation could be pieced together because the Massachusetts Department of Transportation holds a substantial right of way that runs all the way north from Meadow Street to the Sunderland town line. The corridor narrows to about 60 feet in width near Bull Hill, but according to Murphy, that’s as narrow as it gets so, “There is room to do something.”
Murphy talked to Trevor McDaniel, a Selectboard member in Deerfield, engineers at UMass and Amherst, and checked the MassDOT website. He learned the state already has plans for mixed use transportation, a bike lane on Montague Road. That isn’t what he prefers, so he intends to keep pushing state officials for a better, more elaborate plan.
“I’m not a big fan of paint only bike lanes. I push toward finding something separated,” Murphy said. “You got the Norwottuck [Rail] Trail, which is already there in Hadley and Amherst, and comes all the way to UMass, so it seems a natural piece to make a new connection to bring it into Franklin County. It’s a long-term, big thing. It would take decades, a long time.”
A bike lane currently follows North Pleasant Street in Amherst, up to Presidential Apartment Drive, the area of North Village Apartments. That bike lane will be continued onto North Pleasant Road and then along Montague Street. Mixed use lanes would enable Sunderland bike commuting — but if a commuter drove most of the way to school a parking lot could be located just north of Meadow Street, allowing for a half mile walk to the university.
“It’s a [MassDOT] controlled roadway so they obviously … decide,” Murphy said. “But I’m trying to get them to think about this corridor. They have a health transportation direction that says, whenever they do upgrades they need to think about all users, of all abilities, not just the guy who likes to race his bike down the road. It’s everybody, the kids and grandma.”
Other members of the board and Town Administator Geoffrey Kravitz welcomed the idea. Krystal Drake-Tremblay commented that another bridge over the river would be welcome. Nathaniel Waring saw the opportunities to stimulate business in Sunderland.
“There’s already people who come to the park, here, from other towns … so if we could connect that area into the larger network then we can attract more people,” Waring said. “Then people will spend more time in town, or maybe stop at the Corner Store for a drink.”
Murphy will continue his efforts to prompt state officials to consider a corridor into Sunderland, though he said the effort would take a long time to bring about.
Earlier in the meeting, the board discussed another healthy initiative, the installation of pickleball courts in town. The board voted to award a contract for the construction of the courts to William A. Cannon. Kravitz anticipated a cost between $10,000 and $50,000, so solicited three bids for the work. Cannon’s bid of $13,600 was lowest.
The only question board members had was between locations for courts. Drake-Tremblay noted that not all members of the community thought the location behind the Town Hall, the default choice, would be loud for residents on North Main Street. Kravitz countered that an alternative sitebehind houses on School Street, would be just as loud, but for a different set of residents.
“We are going to see if it’s possible to fit them somewhere else,” Kravitz said. “We will look at alternatives … but they’re mostly going to be looking at the location out here.”
The Selectboard voted unanimously to accept the bid by William Cannon and build pickleball courts, complete with a enclosing fence.