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Date: 7/20/2023
WESTFIELD — City residents still have an opportunity to give their input into the city’s Complete Streets Prioritization Plan at a public meeting 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 26, in City Council Chambers, on the second floor of City Hall at 59 Court St., Westfield.
City Engineer Allison McMordie said the MassDOT Complete Streets program, which was adopted by ordinance by the City Council in April 2022, provides state funding for cities to improve streets and other transportation infrastructure to better serve vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users.
Westfield is working with Fuss & O’Neill to develop the Complete Streets Prioritization Plan, which will result in a list of 15 potential transportation improvement projects. If approved, the plan will make the city eligible to apply for up to $500,000 in construction funding for one or more of these projects from the Complete Streets program. MassDOT has agreed to provide $38,000 for reimbursement to the city for the creation of this plan.
McMordie said from May 17 to June 17, the city ran an online survey that asked for comments on existing street conditions in the categories of bicycling, walking, traffic safety and transit stops, and received over 100 comments. She said these comments were compiled to form the prioritization list that will be presented at the public meeting with an opportunity for further comment.
“We’ve taken into consideration everything that everyone said,” McMordie said, adding that projects were sorted for relevancy to the Complete Streets program, which puts an emphasis on public transit, pedestrian crossings, walkways and bicycle traffic in order to create a friendlier environment for non-motorized traffic.
“Now that we have the list, we will have the public meeting with all of the results,” she said.
Some of the suggestions already made include adding bike lanes, bike racks, repainting crosswalks, flashing lights at crosswalks, replacing sidewalks and traffic calming measures.
Although the online comment period has closed, McMordie said the Engineering Department is still taking comments at City Hall, and comments may be brought to the public meeting on July 26.
Although infrastructure projects such as sidewalk replacement are costly and the Complete Streets grant of $500,000 for one project every five years may not go far, McMordie said the process and the resulting plan will help the city with planning.
“Once we have the prioritization plan with a group of 15 potential projects, it will leverage grant applications in the future,” she said. “It will help us to understand residents’ concerns to prioritize and apply for other grant opportunities.”