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Date: 4/4/2023
EASTHAMPTON — The first Envision Main Street Easthampton Community Meeting was hosted by city leaders and members of McMahon Associates who presented ideas for the community to begin brainstorming around.
The city and project leaders used the first of multiple community meetings to come to learn from residents what brings them to the Main Street area, what they enjoy about it and what they want to see improved about it.
The project is seeking to create a Main Street that will improve safety, transit, walking and bicycling infrastructure, street trees, green infrastructure, public space, loading zones and park access. Also, a focus of the project is to employ traffic calming to lower vehicle speeds to make the downtown area safer and more attractive for all users.
Mayor Nicole LaChapelle credited the packed crowd for proving public engagement events in Easthampton show the commitment and interest of residents in their community.
“We start today and then we have years,” LaChapelle noted during her remarks to being the meeting. “This project is scheduled to be fully funded in 2027…but most importantly, tonight starts what we all want to see on the Main Street corridor.”
The estimated $13.7 million project will primarily be funded by the state under the Transportation Improvement Project and will be designed by McMahon Associates.
City Engineer Dan Murphy called the meeting “the first step of an exciting process,” and he was looking forward to beginning the community feedback process through the community gathering.
“We’re excited about improving safety and lowering average speeds on Main Street,” Murphy said. “This will involve some level of compromise. Not everyone is going to get what they want, but hopefully we’ll all agree on the final product and something we’re all happy with.”
City Planner Jeff Bagg spoke before the presentation as well and explained his process in identifying what they can look at for improvements or changes to the Main Street corridor. Bagg reiterated this process helped identify the need to improve pedestrian safety, along with bicycle access, parking, Pulaski Park and the rotary in the area.
When handed over to representatives from McMahon Associates for more of a presentation of what’s to come, one member of the McMahon team shared with residents this was the time for them to start exploring the different options that could help improve the Main Street corridor.
“This is a generational project where the city has the opportunity to reimagine what Main Street is, how it functions, how it looks, how people use it, and what we want to do is support street safety for all and also promote a thriving downtown historic district,” the McMahon associate said. “We intend to improve the safety of accessibility for all modes of transportation through this corridor.”
He added that with this being said it allows for the planning process to consider placemaking features such as park benches or outdoor dining, calling these options, “all possible right now, just a blank slate.”
Dan Lamere of McMahon Associates spoke next and explained he and his team have found barriers and challenges they are looking to document so that the project can potentially address it or leverage it for the better.
“Yes, this is a transportation project, but Main Street does have several different functions,” Lamere explained. “It’s an infrastructure spawning but it’s also a placed historically in a commercial district so we wanted to highlight that.”
Lamere shared a chart showing how most people drive in Easthampton and there were opportunities to encourage walking and biking. According to the data shared, out of every 100 Easthampton residents, 82 drive to work alone, eight work from home, six carpool, two walk, two take transit and one bikes.
“We think there is opportunity to find ways to make safe and functional facilities for alternate modes so that’s something we’ll consider as part of the project,” Lamere said.
He also noted the concerns of vehicle speeds was a big issue highlighted and that it would be a focus of the project. Through another graph Lamere showed that on average, one out of 10 pedestrians would survive being hit by a car traveling at 40 mph. When reduced 10 mph to 30, half of pedestrians hit survive. When reduced to 20 mph, nine out of 10 pedestrians survive.
“Even a small difference can make a big difference in terms of the fatality of a collision,” Lamere said.
Following presentations from McMahon Associates, residents were able to begin brainstorming themselves in breakout groups and were able to further develop ideas and help the city and design team determine community-identified priorities as the project design commences.
The project schedule is still sitting comfortably in the concept and design stage and by spring hopes are to be in the review of alternatives stage where there will be a public event later in the spring titled “Tactical Urbanism” and another discussion later this fall on concept design and preferred alternative.
The final design of the project is scheduled for mid-2024-2025 and construction is expected to begin in 2026 and be completed by the following year. More public meetings are expected in the future to keep community involvement open.