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Date: 3/8/2022
EASTHAMPTON – The city of Easthampton was recently awarded between $1.5 and $1.875 million in the form of an infrastructure grant from Safe Routes to School for improvements to Park Street.
The project is designed to enhance bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements along Park Street from the Manhan Rail Trail to the new Mountain View PreK-8 school.
The project includes the construction of a 400-foot-long accessible multiuse path connection from the existing Manhan Rail Trail up to Park Street. Additionally, the project will include a 3,600-foot-long, 8-foot-wide side path along Park Street to the entrance of the new Mountain View School entrance, new ADA ramps and crosswalks at four street crossings, new ADA ramps at 19 driveways, and some adjustments to Park Street that include new pavement markings and traffic calming.
“The decision to focus on Park Street was based on it being the main route to the new school and upgrading it first will serve the largest number of students and neighborhoods north of the new school,” said Mayor Nicole LaChapelle. “We are grateful that MassDOT (Department of Transportation) has chosen our project out of a competitive list.”
According to City Planner Jeff Bagg, Easthampton began to really look at accessibility paths to school after the city voted in a debt exclusion override for Mountain View in 2018. In 2019, the city began the process of identifying options for pathways to the new school and commissioned the Conway School of Landscape Design to gather public input and envision connections to the new school, Nonotuck Park, neighborhoods and the Manhan Rail Trail. They found that there was indeed public interest in developing accessible pathways to Mountain View.
Later in 2019 and 2020, the city again commissioned the Conway School to closely examine potential off-road connection from the Plains neighborhoods to the south to the new school. “That really started the conversation that there are multiple different routes and multiple different ways to the [Mountain View] school,” Bagg told Reminder Publishing. After realizing that a path through Nonotuck Park would be too expensive, the city conducted another feasibility study for Park Street, and found that it became the most viable option.
“It’s a public road, it’s already got sidewalks, but the route itself would be the most highly-traveled route,” said Bagg. “So, that was the ultimate decision.”
In 2021, the city updated its Open Space and Recreation Plan which included a postcard mailing to all 9,000 households in Easthampton soliciting community participation in a survey with specific questions about enhanced access to the new school. The idea of connecting Manhan Rail Trail to the new school was identified as goal number three.
According to Bagg, the Park Street side path is the largest piece of the route to complete and will bolster other efforts to upgrade pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements including the Ferry Street rail trail crossing completed last year, the Union Street rail trail crossing to be begun at part of the MassDOT Transportation Improvement Program project this year, a planned upgrade to the rail trail crossing at Payson Avenue using MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces, planned upgrades for crosswalks on Holyoke Street, and ongoing and planned improvements to the intersection of South and Main Street.
Bagg also added that MassDOT will handle the design work, which is crucial, since this is sometimes a cost that the city themselves would have to pay for. “They will hire their own consultant to look at the feasibility study, and they’ll be doing site visits,” said Bagg. “And then they’re going to come up with what’s called a 10 percent design.”
When the city reaches that stage, Bagg said they will conduct a stakeholder meeting so people can review the 10 percent design draft. After that feedback and input, the consultant will then go back and create more detailed drawings, otherwise known as a 25/75 percent design plan. Somewhere along that timeline, there will be a formal public hearing with MassDOT where people can offer comments or questions about the project. “The city’s role is this is our project, and it’s being facilitated by MassDOT,” added Bagg.
With middle school students making headway in Mountain View a couple months ago, and elementary school students set to move into the school in the fall, Bagg said that beginning to plan for these enhancements and improvements will be crucial.
“There are people who arrive by car and bus, but there are people who walk and bike,” said Bagg. “We want to have all those options available. We have this funding source to upgrade the route to make it safer for students to walk and bike. If we can connect neighborhoods to the rail trail, then those people can get to the new school.”
The grant will be used for the design and will further refine the cost of the entire project, according to Bagg. The project will not start construction until 2025 at the earliest, according to Bagg. Project completion and ribbon cutting would occur in 2026. Bagg said that a letter will be sent to Park Street residents in the near future with information about the project and details about the meetings that will come with it.
“We have years’ worth of work to continue to make all of the routes to school safer,” said Bagg. “Over the next several years, we really have to start working on all these other projects and all these other routes too. “This is really the first of several projects that will help us reorient people to get to the new school.”
For more updates on the project, residents should visit https://easthamptonma.gov/608/MassDOT-Safe-Routes-to-School---Park-Str.