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Date: 6/30/2021
NORTHAMPTON – During a Zoom meeting on June 24, Northampton residents participated in the fifth Picture Main Street Forum over the redesign of the city’s downtown.
To start the meeting, Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz said redesigning downtown through Picture Main Street would be key to the future of the city.
“There can be no doubt that we all love downtown, and we all want to see downtown be successful in the future. The future redesign of downtown will be key to that. We also want to create a functioning, enduring, and sustainable landscape making sure we can continue to support resident, business, tourist, and city functions as we make major upgrades,” he said.
Jason DeGray, the project manager with Tool Designs, started the presentation by explaining that the project is a reconstruction of Main Street from the intersection of Elm and West streets to the intersection of Market and Holly streets.
“The project is a comprehensive reconstruction of Main Street from its western extents at the intersection of Elm and West streets, easterly through State, New South, in front of the Academy of Music, around the curve with City Hall, past Gothic to the intersection of King, Pleasant and Main, further to the east before culminating at the intersection of Market and Holly streets,” he said.
DeGray said the project is estimated to cost around $14 million and construction would not begin until at least October of 2024.
“As it stands currently the project is estimated to be about $14 million. It is currently programmed on the state’s Transportation Improvement Program, which is the primary funding source for the project. It is programmed for the fiscal year of 2025, so the earliest construction could begin is Oct. 1, 2024,” he said.
DeGray explained that the next step of the project would be to finalize the 25 percent plans for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT).
“The MassDOT 25 percent design is a rather detailed design submittal, it is intended to get to all of the components of the project, but it does leave some room for continued conversation and adjustment. It is a milestone submission and is important for maintaining the funding year. We are looking at a December date to submit the design,” he said.
Lydia Hausle then jumped in to recap alternative three from the previous meeting, which would be the base for the MassDOT 25 percent design.
“Alternative three, which was selected, includes three travel lanes, one in each direction along with one dedicated to people turning left, which can be a real chokehold for traffic, separated bike lanes on both sides, angled parking, and sidewalks ranging from 6 feet to 35 feet,” she said.
After the previous meeting, a survey was released to gauge the importance of certain aspects of the redesign and Hausle said 1,271 people responded from 178 different cities and towns, many of whom were concerned with climate and sustainability.
“What we learned from this is that people want everything to work on Main Street. The two metrics that had the highest level of folks saying it was important were both about trees and green infrastructure. People are concerned about climate and wanted to see a greener street that was more sustainable and forward thinking,” she said.
Hausle added that 70 percent of the survey responders were in favor of alternative three.
One of the biggest talking points among residents after the presentation was a debate between angled parking or parallel parking in front of businesses.
One resident, Tina Ingmann, said she was in favor of parallel parking to allow for more space for trees.
“We should replace the angled parking with space-saving parallel parking to leave room for trees and people attracting streetscaping everywhere possible. I strongly agree with the improvements suggested by the Main Street for Everyone group. I want our city to thrive as a favored destination for our community,” she said.
Based on an experiment with parallel parking back in August of 2020, James Winston, another resident, said parallel parking does not work.
“From a safety standpoint with parallel parking, what we saw last August, drivers had to open their doors to traffic, it was much more dangerous. In angle parking, people are opening their doors to a car on their left and right. It is not the same as opening it to oncoming traffic, we also lost more space to parallel parking as well,” he said.
The next large-scale Picture Main Street Forum will take place in the spring of 2022 after MassDOT reviews the 25 percent design.