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Date: 7/26/2021
WEST SPRINGFIELD – On Route 5 southbound between East Elm Street and the North End Bridge Rotary, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) established a “road diet” – temporary lane reduction that began on July 20, and will last for about a month.
The overall purpose of this project is to reduce travel from two lanes to one, and to monitor traffic traveling through.
Mayor William Reichelt said, “From the section of East Elm – where the McDonald’s is – or that set of lights are, down to the tunnel on the off ramp – people tend to speed a lot in that quarter-mile strip.”
Reichelt said they have received various complaints of vehicle speeds and safety concerns from neighbors in this area, especially from Melissa Hensen who resides here.
He claimed there have been many accidents on this strip and people have asked for guardrails in the past, however, the state doesn’t want to put them up. “They don’t want to put guardrails in until there’s other things they see they can do, so their thought was to try this road diet and see if this slows traffic down.”
According to information provided by the West Springfield Police Department, “A study conducted by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) found that four-lane to three-lane road diets reduce the total number of crashes by 19 to 47 percent. Some road diets have shown an even greater improvement—as much as a 70 percent reduction in crashes along a single stretch of road.”
“Road diets are proven safety countermeasures that reduce the number of conflict points and make travel safer for all roadway users,” the Police Department continued.
MassDOT has set up cameras along this strip to monitor all traffic, 24/7. After evaluating the situation, MassDOT will decide what they want to do moving forward.
“If this works, they would probably look to reconstruct that section of road so that it is physically only one lane,” predicted Reichelt.
The West Springfield Police Department assured that residents will still have access to side streets and driveways throughout the entirety of this project.