Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 8/11/2022
WESTFIELD – Granville and Westfield are among the 138 communities across Massachusetts to share in $16.4 million awarded by the Baker-Polito administration through the Shared Streets and Spaces Program. Westfield was given two awards, one for $177,888 and another for $41,800, and Granville received $89,000 through the program.
The program provides technical assistance and project funding to help Massachusetts cities and towns design and implement changes to curbs, streets and parking areas in support of public health, safe mobility and community growth and revitalization.
After a year-long advocacy effort by supporters, Westfield received the funds to install its first ValleyBike bike share stations, as well as to install signs to direct riders from the downtown to the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail.
City Engineer Allison McMordie said the $177,888 award will be used for two ValleyBike stations. One is proposed on Western Avenue near Westfield State University and Stanley Park, and the other is on Elm Street in the downtown area, adjacent to the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority’s Olver Transit Center.
“This is an attempt to start building a shared bike network,” McMordie said. “The two stations would be connected by a new shared-use path along Western Avenue and Court Street that will be completed this summer [or] next spring. Wayfinding signage is proposed to direct riders from the downtown station and to the rail trail. Each station will have 10 electric assist bikes and docking capacity for 16 bikes.”
“The new equipment will be compatible with the existing ValleyBike stations in Amherst, Chicopee, Easthampton, Holyoke, Northampton, South Hadley, Springfield, West Springfield and UMass,” she added. “This means that neighboring community members can use their membership and readily use the ValleyBikes here in Westfield. We plan to expand this network further as funding becomes available.”
A separate award of $41,800 will be used to install pedestrian-activated warning devices and crossing signals. McMordie said this award will be used for rectangular rapid flashing beacon installations at crosswalks on Court Street to increase safety for walkers to the YMCA and City Hall, and on Union Street for safer access to Powdermill Village. These improvements will complement recently upgraded sidewalks, ramps and crosswalks, and improve access to nearby bus stops, she said.
Westfield has been talking about joining the bike rental program since at least the spring of 2021, after West Springfield joined the program and Planning Board Chair William Carellas brought the idea to the Planning Board and to the City Council.
Carellas said ValleyBike racks are across from his office in West Springfield and they were being used daily.
“We need to get these downtown and also at Westfield State,” he said, adding that it would give people who come into Westfield on the bus a way to get around. He said two members of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail’s board were at the Planning Board meeting, and were highly in favor of it.
In March 2022, then-City Engineer Mark Cressotti had Stantec Consulting Services submit the application for the Shared Streets and Spaces program. Utility engineer Matthew Gamelli said the grant was approved in August, and he anticipates the ValleyBikes could be installed by next spring.
For more information on the bike share program, visit ValleyBike.org.
Granville’s $89,000 grant from the Shared Streets and Spaces Program will mostly be used to purchase high-reflectivity signs and delineators to make the most dangerous roads in town safer.
Granville Public Works Superintendent Doug Roberts said that Old Westfield Road, Granby Road, and parts of Route 57 were found to be the most dangerous roads in town after a safety audit was conducted by UMass-Amherst.
“We constantly try to address places that have a high statistical average of accidents,” said Roberts.
On those roads, Roberts said they will install the highest grade of reflective delineators and speed limit and warning signs so that drivers can see them better at night.
“Even on low-beam headlights, you can see these for a long distance,” said Roberts.
He said he wrote the grant a year ago, and is now only waiting for the notice to proceed with the installations, some of which will likely require minor roadwork.