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Date: 4/26/2021
HOLYOKE – The city of Holyoke is seeking to make improvements along the Springdale Corridor while also adding accessibility for those traveling by foot and bike.
The Springdale Corridor-Main Street Project, formerly announced as the Connecticut River Pathway, is in the “pre-pre planning” stage, said Aaron Vega, Holyoke’s director of planning and economic development. The project, according to its description, will aim to “provide a safe and innovative shared-use path for residents and visitors by connecting Route 5 to Springdale Park.”
Vega said the project was in the “information gathering stage.” This stage, he explained, consists of gathering information from community stakeholders such as businesses and residents. This was done through several community outreaches including an online survey, a walking tour and online virtual hearing. “We did three outreaches. The first was an online survey, which is open until the end of the month. We did a walking tour from Springdale Park to Holyoke Rows joined by residents,” he said.
During the walking tour, he said they “got about 30 responses that day” with residents joining the walk along the corridor. The last outreach conducted by the department was an online public hearing. Vega said the hearing was advertised on social media and “had a fair number of people join.” He added that the video from the hearing was posted online and can be referred back to as residents needed or wanted.
Additionally, he said during the planning stage the city would be presented with options such as conceptual designs and funding possibilities from several different consultants. “Consultants will present some options and research funding possibilities. If they continue they will raise money as well, we’re looking at what can be done in this area,” he said.
Like with any project Vega said some concerns were brought forth during the outreaches they had done. He called the part of town “an interesting corridor” because there were concerns about a variety of issues such as parking and bike safety. “People want to make sure there’s a separation between a bikeway for bikes and walking along the road. They’re worried about safety concerns with a road like that people drive fast,” he said.
Vega added businesses along Main Street were “always happy to see improvements” along their storefronts.
He went on to say that the state would be “redoing Route 5” in the coming years, and the city was hoping to complete the project around the same time to capitalize the benefit Holyoke could see from the project. “The state is going to be redoing Route 5, from Springfield into Holyoke, so we’re looking to capitalize on those improvements to improve on them,” he said. “The main focus is called shared streets, or complete streets so finding the best ways both on bike and walking to interact with car traffic.”
Vega said the Route 5 project was “slated to happen in three years,” and the city was “hoping to capitalize on that and work in concert or leverage that project” to get the Springdale Corridor project completed. The project, Vega explained, would be largely funded by grant and construction requests to MassDOT, but there were also local sources of funding they could use for the project as well.
“MassDOT will be the main source of funding, we’ll be putting in requests into grants or normal construction requests that go out each year. It’s a lengthy process,” he said. “Locally we can also leverage things like community preservation funds, which are used for the beatification of open space.”
The use of such funds, he said, would “make it more desirable for the state to fund” the project as the “state always likes it when we can put forward” some funding for the project.
Ultimately, in addition to providing more safe transportation routes for bikers and walking pedestrians, Vega said it would also increase accessibility in the area. “In a post-COVID world where we can have events at the park, we want to make sure people can get to it safely. There are a lot of activities going on in that corridor,” he said.