Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 12/27/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Annoying as they may be, in some cases even to the mayor, the speed humps on Amostown Road, the “road diet” on Westfield Road and the planned rotary downtown are just the start, with much more to come.
“Our main priority is speed,” Mayor William Reichelt said to town councilors at their Dec. 18 meeting, and the main solution is “changing the road geometry.”
“You see it, and I find it annoying, too, the raised crosswalks on Amostown, but I’ve also seen that they work,” Reichelt added. “It slows traffic down and it makes it safer when you’re crossing.”
He presented an ambitious roster of current projects and proposals for speed-reducing and pedestrian safety improvements throughout town. Raised crosswalks are being considered for Ashley and Birnie avenues, Dewey Street, and Morgan and Piper roads, and “that’s not all of them,” Reichelt said. “We’re going to look at [more] roads going forward, and build that into our paving bids.”
He said crews recently finished safety improvements at Piper Road and Monastery Avenue, where pedestrian Neely Murray died after being hit by a car a year ago. The work extended the sidewalk network in that neighborhood and installed “bump-outs,” new curbing that narrows the roadway as it approaches the intersection. Reichelt said the same contractor has already been tapped to do similar work at Kings Highway and Pine Street.
Roadwork along the whole length of Kings Highway could involve installing a shared-use path for walkers and bicyclists, said Reichelt. His goal is to have separated paths or bike lanes that can connect the Riverwalk with the Bear Hole nature preserve and the bike trail network in Westfield, which currently links to a large network in Connecticut and is proposed to connect north to trails in the Easthampton-Northampton area, and from there all the way to Boston.
The town is also investigating how to reconstruct the intersection of Kings Highway and Westfield Street to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety. Route 20 west of that point, all the way to the Westfield city line, is maintained by the state, which is itself working on a safety project that may include lane reductions, or “road diets,” in some places, and bicycle infrastructure. Another state project likely to include bicycle lanes is a reconstruction of the northern end of Riverdale Street (Route 5).
Town Councilor Michael Eger suggested that the mayor look at improvements to other sections of Route 20, such as the hill near Mittineague School where the road constricts from four lanes to two, then back to four again, “encouraging racing in a place where we really need to have slower traffic,” and the intersection of Park and River streets and South Boulevard, which he said is dangerous for pedestrians.
Plans are already in place for the state-funded transformation of Memorial Avenue (Route 147) from four lanes to three — including a shared left-turn lane in the center — with a shared-use path along the Eastern States Exposition property and on-street separated bike lanes from the fairground to the Memorial Bridge rotary.
Reichelt said town engineers are nearly done designing a rotary — he used the term “roundabout,” which engineers use for rotaries specifically designed for slower speeds — at Amostown and Piper roads. They are considering another at Dewey Street, Rogers Avenue and Bear Hole Road, but there may not be enough room.
Town Council President Edward Sullivan applauded Reichelt’s plans, and said the public safety benefit extends farther than just pedestrians and bikers.
“When you engineer your community to force people to drive slower, what happens is it frees up the police to do other things they’re also paid to do, instead of doing traffic stops for speed and radar traps,” Sullivan said.
Reichelt said town officials are studying how to improve safety at Amostown Road and Dewey Street, and at Birnie Avenue and Morgan Road, as a prelude to fulfilling a longstanding request of Circle Drive residents to close the connection between their neighborhood and Fausey Drive. That would have the effect of routing school traffic along Morgan, Pease and Amostown to the other end of Fausey Drive.
Birnie Avenue will be rebuilt in three phases, starting next summer, both for safety and better storm drainage, Reichelt said. That project will include new sidewalks, and he hopes to continue extending the sidewalk network along Piper Road after the Birnie work is done.
David Schmidt, a resident of Christopher Terrace, asked the mayor to consider safety improvements at Birnie and Prospect avenues, where only two sides of a three-way intersection have stop signs, and drivers depend on a convex mirror to see traffic from the roadway without a stop sign.
“That intersection is extremely dangerous,” he said. “Once people come off Bobola Drive and they go up that hill, they’re plowing up that hill. … If you’re coming from Birnie to Prospect, you cannot see down the hill, physically, without that mirror. A lot of times, because of the speed of the traffic there, you don’t have enough time” to avoid a near-accident, he said.
Fred Connor, an Overlook Drive resident, suggested turning some of the intersections where cross-streets have stop signs, but Piper Road does not, into four-way stops. He also said there should be a painted box and warning not to block it on Highland Street where Prospect Avenue ends, so residents of the Prospect Avenue area can get home without being blocked by Holyoke Mall traffic.
Reichelt encouraged residents of town with concerns about specific roads to get in touch with the Town Council’s Traffic and Safety Committee when the new councilors take office in January 2024.