MEMORANDUM |

To: Michael Trepanier Date: October 3, 2016 Project Manager

From: Andreas Wolfe HSH Project No.: 2013061.15 Howard Stein Hudson

Subject: MassDOT Highway Division Route 9 Corridor Improvement Project Hadley Board of Selectmen Briefing Meeting Notes of September 7, 2016

Overview

On September 7, 2016, the Route 9 Corridor Improvement Project team provided a targeted briefing to the Hadley Board of Selectmen at the request of the Hadley’s Town Administrator, David Nixon. The briefing was held at Hadley Town Hall located at 100 Middle Street in Hadley and was televised on Hadley’s Public Access Television (HPAT). The meeting summarized herein served the purpose of providing both the Hadley Board of Selectmen and the larger Hadley community with an update on the alternatives analysis for the project while soliciting input and comments on the preferred alternative to be filed under the Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) within the Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

The Route 9 Corridor Improvement Project is made up of two components that inform and correspond to one another: The B43 Transit Mobility Study and the Middle to South Maple Street Widening Project. It was determined early in the process that in order to answer the ultimate question of a three versus four- lane cross section for the portion of Route 9 between Middle and South Maple Street, the project team must consider the benefits of an improved transit system while taking into account the primary goal of improving safety for all modes. Through the analysis of the B43 Transit Mobility Study as described in the meeting minutes summarized herein, the project team determined that the overall benefit to mobility and safety were best achieved under a three-lane cross section alternative for Route 9 between Middle and South Maple Street.

Generally speaking, the Hadley Select Board supported the three-lane cross section alternative primarily due to the increased safety operations and congestion relief compared to the existing roadway configuration. While the project team is aware of the needed bicycle and pedestrian accommodates within this section of Route 9, it was reiterated by members’ of the Select Board that improved accommodates for these modes is desired and would likely be better achieved under a three-lane cross section due to roadway right-of-way and property impacts. Furthermore, it was generally agreed upon that a three-lane cross section would process similar traffic volumes compared to a four-lane cross section due to the inside travel lanes serving the left-turn function under a four-lane alternative.

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While some concern was voiced regarding the B43 conceptual route plan and stop consolidations in Hadley, it was largely agreed upon that the recommendations would increase efficiency in transit use and ridership. Slight concern was also voiced comparing the cost differential between the three and four-lane alternatives; while it was determined that the three-lane alternative would be more cost effective to construct, overall it provides safer accommodations for all modes traveling the Route 9 corridor. Moving forward, it is anticipated that the project team will select a three-lane preferred alternative to be advanced into preliminary design.

Detailed Meeting Minutes1

C: Michael Trepanier (MT): Good evening everyone, my name is Michael Trepanier and I am the project manager with MassDOT for the Route 9 Corridor Improvement Project. Tonight I’m joined by Project Development Engineer, Richard Masse out of the MassDOT District 2 office in Northampton. I am also joined by our team of consultants who have been working on the project for over two years including Carolyn Radisch, John Osorio, Jason DeGray, and our newest hire at MassDOT, Mark Kotowski.

Our goal with tonight’s presentation is to give you a brief overview of what our team has done to date. Ultimately we want to discuss where we’ve gotten to from our starting point, where we’re going, and provide an overview of the transit study that was conducted for the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) B43 route. Since the last time I was before the Hadley Board of Selectmen we’ve learned a lot from a number of stakeholders in the area including the PVTA, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC), the City of Northampton, the Town of Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst. We brought all of these folks together to discuss the Route 9 Corridor Improvement Project, the best outcomes as well as goals for the job.

The project area for the construction portion of the project runs between Middle to South Maple Street. We are ultimately talking about two projects that have the primary goals of increasing safety for all modes, relieving congestion along Route 9, and equipping Route 9 for the future including upgrades to accessible ramps, sidewalks as well as making the corridor more multimodal. We recognize that the existing corridor doesn’t function great for vehicles nor does it function well for people.

This winter we conducted a long-term study for the PVTA B43 route to look at how improvements could be made to its operations in order to capitalize on the number of existing buses and to make those buses flow quicker to help draw off some of the single occupancy vehicles that are traveling along the corridor. Our goal is to reconstruct the roadway, rehabilitate the existing pavement, upgrade the drainage, and widen the roadway to increase capacity.

1 Herein “C” stands for comment, “Q” for question and “A” for answer. For a list of attendees, please see Appendix 1. For copies of meeting flipcharts, please see Appendix 2. Page 2

This project is made up of two major components. The first is the widening project which was the original reason I came to present to the Board of Selectmen. The purpose of widening Route 9 is to move more people through the corridor from the two large anchors of Northampton and Amherst. By widening Route 9 we are also able to alleviate some of the congestion without building another highway type road like Route 116. After consulting with town employees and people who have been involved in our stakeholder group including Donald Pipczynski, we found that in order to get vehicular capacity out of the corridor we must improve transit operations and get more people and students riding the bus.

This is a much larger scale transit mobility study that isn’t limited to just the piece of the corridor that we want to reconstruct. We’re looking at how the route operates, where the passengers are being picked up and dropped off, and really digging into that analysis. Once we take into account those improvements and other factors such as safety and private property impacts, we’ll determine if we really need four-lanes like the rest of the corridor or if three-lanes will be sufficient. This has been a long ongoing process since we first met with that larger stakeholder group in July 2015. We had a special subcommittee of folks that were interested in how to analyze the transit aspect of the project and they provided great guidance on what to look at.

We held our first large scale meeting at Hopkins Academy in September just under a year ago. Since then we have done some targeted outreach with groups such as the Pioneer Valley Chapter of MassBike. We then held another set of meetings after we analyzed some of the various alternatives and have been invited to present to the Board of Selectmen tonight so that we could give the board an opportunity to see what we’ve done and weigh in on the process. Tonight also allows us to reach the broader audience of the Hadley community which we are hoping to hear more from as well. At this point I’m going to turn it over to Carolyn to discuss the B43 Transit Mobility Study.

B43 Transit Mobility Study

C: Carolyn Radisch (CR): Hi everyone, my name is Carolyn Radisch. As Michael mentioned, our goal is to get more people using transit in the Route 9 corridor. In order to do this we need to make the buses more convenient and efficient. This means less time wasted in congestion and delays of inefficient routing, more attractive waiting areas, and signal prioritization. What we’re looking at is a version of bus rapid transit (BRT) that we can implement to make transit more effective and attractive for transit users.

Some of the characteristics of what we are calling BRT-lite include the buses traveling with vehicles in what is called mixed flow lanes. There is a range of BRT components starting with the gold standard which is similar to a rail system on wheels with dedicated right-of-way. In this scenario we don’t have space for that so we’re looking at buses in the traffic flow with traffic signal priority. This is a big item we can do to reduce the delay at the signals and make the buses more efficient. Stop consolidation will look at removing some of the stops that are not heavily used right now in order to reduce delay for the buses. Typically with BRT, you are looking at a quarter to half mile spacing for transit stops.

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Another transit item for improvement is waiting areas and shelters. As you can see, our goal is to make it more comfortable to wait for the bus. Real time travel information, for example, “next bus arrives in 5 minutes” will make it easier and incentivize transit use. You can also download apps to your phone to check the bus times in real-time. Another thing that can be done is branding. Buses can be branded so that the express or BRT-lite buses look different than the regular B43 buses. This helps people visually understand and separate the BRT routes. Our ultimate goal is to have more frequent service to attract more people to use transit.

The B43 route essentially runs from Smith College in Northampton through Hadley to the Haggis Mall at UMass and turns around at Amherst College. In terms of ridership, about 20% of boards and alights are in the downtown Northampton stops. About 15% of the boards and alights are at the malls in Hadley with the being the second busiest stop on the entire route. The busiest stop which accounts for about 20% of the ridership is at the Haggis Mall at UMass. In downtown Amherst there is another stop which accounts for 15% of ridership.

Q: Gerald Devine (GD): It’s hard to determine if the ridership will improve if you haven’t made the improvements yet, correct?

A: CR: We can project ridership through our modeling software. I’ll get to that at the end of the presentation and discuss how we would change the route based on what we know. We would then be projecting better time information which will help us determine what the impact on ridership will be.

Q: Donald Pipczynski (DP): Do the express routes that are in place today have any stops in between Smith College and UMass?

A: CR: No, I don’t think so.

C: DP: It’s a very quick route when they go through.

C: CR: Yes and that is because they are not stopping along the way. Most of the existing B43 routes are on timed schedules and must be predictable. An express bus does not have to wait for schedule timings. We want to look at delay and how we can reduce delay. The biggest point of delay is at Damon Road particularly in the westbound direction during the evening. This section at Damon Road will be addressed under a separate project and that intersection will be improved. Those improvements are going to help the movement of Route 9 which will in turn reduce delay for the bus as well as cars.

A lot of additional delay occurs as a result of the traffic signals which is something we can address with signal priority. Getting through downtown Northampton or Amherst where a lot of signals and pedestrian crossings occur also caused some delay. Pedestrians are users of transit so in this case, delay caused by pedestrians is a positive thing. Northampton has some ideas for their Main Street that would reconfigure the road and make their crossing distances shorter for pedestrians so we think that will also help the transit service delay in those areas.

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Hadley has much lower transit usage and lower density compared to Northampton, Amherst, and UMass. Roughly 4% of the boards and alights are on the seven pairs on that segment. Part of the reason it is difficult for pedestrians and transit riders to use the bus is due to access. The pedestrian environment is very important when considering improving ridership. Middle Street, for example has the highest ridership in Hadley Center. You can cross the street there and there are also sidewalks. I don’t think that that’s a coincidence because there are better pedestrian amenities at that stop.

In summary, we are recommending that the B43 route should be included in a mix-flow system. We’re looking at rerouting the route to use Route 116 rather than University Drive to eliminate delay. There isn’t heavy ridership on University Drive and there are other bus lines that serve that route currently. Right now we have three different signal systems. Northampton, Hadley, and Amherst all have different systems which don’t have any signal prioritization. Part of the reroute that we’re recommending is to terminate the bus at UMass and eliminate the extension into downtown Amherst. The PVTA thinks we can save up to 40 minutes by doing this. There are a lot of other transit routes that serve Downtown Amherst and connect to UMass.

We’re going to take out some of the lower used stops and some of those are located in Hadley. It’s a lower density area but it’s also a very difficult area to cross the road. Our goal is to focus on some of the stops and provide better amenities. Some of the stops we want to ultimately move curb side, like the ones at the mall.

Q: GD: Which ones are going to be taken out? It would be helpful if you could be more specific so we can understand which stops you are taking about.

A: MT: I’m checking to see if we’ve uploaded this figure to our project website. This is our conceptual route plan.2 We’re showing it on the screen but I understand that it may be hard to read. When you zoom in on the PDF you get a much better idea of the symbols and legend. This symbol is a stop that’s going to remain, that’s a yellow with a black line. The symbol that’s a yellow circle with a red line is a stop that’s being removed and consolidated. The blue are stops that have been relocated.

C: GD: It looks like nine stops on Route 9 are going to be eliminated.

A: MT: No there’s only two stops in that central area. These are stops where the bus goes into the Mall parking lot.

A: CR: We’re just moving those out to the curbside in the ultimate plan.

Q: John Waskiewicz (JW): I have another question. You’re quite aware of the crossings in Hadley. We have asked about the West Street Common and the two sidewalks that were taken out. It’s the same distance from the bike path to those crossings at East Street, at Middle Street and at West Street. There needs to be crosswalks at those streets.

2 The conceptual route plan is available upon request by emailing: [email protected] Page 5

A: MT: You’ll remember from earlier in the presentation that I mentioned one of things we want to accomplish with this is increased safety for all modes. MassDOT, formerly Mass Highway, had a different sort of focus 15, 10, even 5 years ago.

C: JW: Yes. Fixing traffic that’s what it was about.

A: MT: Correct. We were a highway department. Now we have a very different culture when it comes to how we develop projects and designs. I can assure you that East Street will have sidewalks and crosswalks so that it’s safe for pedestrians to cross the road. I’ve stood there myself trying to get a sense of that intersection. It will not be left out.

C: DP: I’d like to show you a photo of what was there because we did have crosswalks at one time.

C: RM: We have a preliminary plan for that intersection to add crosswalks east and west of the West Street Intersections using Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons. A person would press the button and the light would turn red for traffic on Route 9.

C: JC: People travel 40 to 50 miles per hour on that section road. It’s like the Indy 500 through there.

Q: GD: Would these be actual red lights that would come on for the Route 9 traffic when a pedestrian wants to cross Route 9?

A: RM: Yes.

Q: JC: How’s that going to work with the express bus?

C: GD: Maybe we should put another stop there at the pedestrian crossing.

Q: JC: Is this transit study driven by PVTA?

A: MT: No.

Q: JC: But ultimately they are providing the service?

A: MT: Yes. It was surprising to us but very revealing the first time we met with the larger stakeholder group. The stakeholder group is compiled of every important player we could find in the area that would have a stake or some sort of valuable input for the decisions along Route 9. This is how MassDOT works now. We don’t just make decisions in a vacuum anymore. For projects of this size and scope we like to start with a clean slate and include everyone who has an interest to the project.

C: JW: I agree that bicycles should be accommodated too. Bicycles come down from the Norwottock Rail Trail and head towards the restaurants.

C: MT: Agreed. We need to provide local connectivity for bicycles and we plan on doing that.

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C: JW: You know it’s not only the people walking on the sidewalks. Bicycles need to cross as well.

C: DP: I agree with John. When the Norwottock Rail Trail is closed for the winter we end up with more bicycle ridership on Route 9. Hadley’s Police have had problems with bicycles riding in the middle of the travel lane. When you reconstruct the section of Route 9 between Middle and South Maple Street you need to add bicycle lanes.

C: MT: That’s something that Jason’s going to talk about. I’m excited to hear this kind of feedback but we only have a short amount of time on the agenda. Let’s move through the rest of the material so we can open it up to a question and comments.

C: GD: One last thing. I think it’s good for things to move faster on the bus but I think that the people of Hadley are going to get slighted with the number of stops that are being proposed. We’re trying to provide a better opportunity for people to use the bus. 29% of the population of Hadley works at the UMass. Let’s remember that Hadley’s here in the middle too and to not only eliminate stops in Hadley.

A: CR: We’re very mindful of that. We want more people to use transit.

C: JW: Yes and I know you’ve gotten input from a lot of people. I’m sure when we fine tune this it will all come into place.

C: MT: Part of the reason for eliminating those stops is based on the count data from PVTA. They have sensors at the bus doors that tell them how many people are getting on and off. We have trends of data about how many people are using those stops. They are very minor but would offer a very substantial benefit for the overall operations of the service.

C: GD: Except you’re building a better mouse trap now and when the mouse trap gets better and more available, people will want to use it more.

A: CR: That’s something that we can model to determine if those stops improve ridership after the improvements have been made.

Alternatives Analysis

C: Jason DeGray (JD): Good evening everybody, my name is Jason DeGray and I’m a Regional Engineering Director for Toole Design Group. At Toole Design Group we try to fill the gap between vehicular and multimodal modeling. This project is an outgrowth of what was recommended when MassDOT studied a potential additional bridge crossing of the River. The outcome of that study was that the environmental impacts were too great for an additional bridge. The result of that study was that Route 9 is going to carry the mobility needs of the region for the foreseeable future. The

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study also made two recommendations on how to improve that. One was the recommendation of BRT system and the other was to have a consistent four-lane cross section of Route 9.

It is quickly apparent to anyone that traffic volumes on Route 9 are at the upper limit of what a road of this type can carry. The traffic counts get up to about 25,000 vehicles per day. As we move forward we have some fundamental choices to make. We could easily make a consistent four-lane cross section, which is something we’re about to talk about. To get beyond that we are talking about choices that would fundamentally change the nature of the region. The planning study is giving us important information in determining what the future cross section of Route 9 through the center of Hadley from Middle to South Maple Street is going to look like. The components of the planning study that overlap with our corridor will be integrated as part of our project. Beyond that, the planning study is guidance for future stakeholders of future projects. I’m going to speak in idealized terms as to whether we are discussing a two-lane, three-lane, or four-lane cross section.

As you approach a traffic signal you have storage lanes for turning movements, so we’re not really talking about what’s happening at the signals, we’re talking about an idealized cross section between signal locations along the corridor. At the Central Rock Gym we currently have two-lanes. Our alternatives widen this section of Route 9 to either a three or a four-lane cross section. In addition, it would have sidewalk improvements on both sides and striped bike lanes on both sides. This alternative is what we typically refer to as a road diet section. In this scenario we are widening for a third lane and that third lane serves the left-turns in either direction. At locations where there are no driveways no left turns would be required and you could use the center turning lane as a vegetated median.

We’re going to make our decision primarily based on two factors: safety and mobility. We’re going to start with safety. This is a map that indicates all the crashes that occurred on Route 9 between 2009 and 2013. We broke this into three distinct segments. The sections are from the Calvin Coolidge Bridge to East Street, from East Street to Maple Street, and from Maple Street to Route 116. We did a safety analysis that looked at the number of crashes that occurred along the corridor and determined a crash rate based on the amount of traffic. The one thing that really stands out is that the two existing four-lane segments have crash rates higher than the state average. The two-lane section has a crash rate lower than the state average. That tells us that there’s something fundamental in the choice between two and four-lanes that creates some safety concerns.

A four-lane cross section would essentially be an undivided highway which has significant safety concerns. This is something that’s been an evolution of the transportation practice particularly in the last 10 years. With an undivided highway there are two major conflict points. When you have two cars it creates cases weaving from one lane to another which leads to sideswipes. The big one is the left- turns from the four-lane section. When driveway access points increase, left-turns across the roadway increase as well. A vehicle that sits waiting to turn left creates a hazard for drivers coming behind them. As the volumes increase, the inside lanes often become de facto turn-lanes regardless. A three- lane section dramatically reduces the number of conflict points that a roadway has. Drivers in a three- lane section use the middle turning-lane to wait and only have to cross one lane when turning. Page 8

We have studies of roads that have been taken from four-lanes down to three-lanes. These studies point to a drop in crashes from 19% to 47% reduction in crashes. More importantly the severity of crashes drops quite a bit. Speeds dropped as well and we know that speed is the primary factor in severe crashes. From a safety stand point, a three-lane cross section significantly outweighs a four-lane cross section.

The other factor is mobility. We have these sophisticated models but we also make sure the model is matching what is happening out there in real time. Currently we are looking at a five and a half to six minute travel time. The blue here represents a no-build situation in ten years if we did nothing. We would be looking at a 100% increase in delay and even more on the Saturday. The green represents a four-lane section and shows significant savings. The red shows a three-lane section and again we are seeing a dramatic decrease in delay down to within a matter of seconds of the existing travel time.

The difference between the three and four-lane sections has been proven out in numerous studies that the vehicles that are turning left from the inside lane essentially chew up the capacity. The overwhelming takeaway from the industry is that three-lane sections carry just as much volumes as four-lanes undivided. Both are far better than a no-build scenario. This is leading us to recommend that the future section along this stretch should be a three-lane section.

I want to go back to our last slide for our takeaways: we want improve safety, relieve congestion and have a strategy around special events. When I think about Route 9, I think about the congestion that occurs. It can be all the way from the Calvin Coolidge Bridge up to University Drive. When we did our modelling and our traffic analysis, those travel times of 5 minutes are typical time periods. There are other factors, such as the University having special events and on Saturday, the commercial activity around the Malls really spikes. One thing we did take away from our safety analysis was that on Fridays crash rates were the highest. These were rear end crashes, which are indicative of a rolling queue. This is the University getting out of work and people trying to get to I-91. The Damon Road roundabout will improve Route 9 congestion. As to what we control in this project, the three-lane section really stands out.

C: MT: One of the things Jason didn’t say is that a divided highway will limit some of the economic growth and development potential on Route 9. I know that the master planning process is being refreshed but Hadley’s existing master plan states to limit commercial development to Route 9. It’s an important consideration whether we divide Route 9 or not. By introducing that kind of access control we would really limit the ability for new growth on some of those unbuilt or underdeveloped parcels.

Q: DP: When you say divided road, are you referring to a place like Riverdale Street in West Springfield?

A: MT: Yes. It is a road that cuts off access from either side. It would require you to make U-turns and turn around in order to make a left-turn.

Q: DP: With a barrier you are also indicating that you can move more traffic than a three lane?

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A: MT: Yes. What we heard from people in this group and from others at our earlier meeting at Hopkins Academy was that there was something special here that we didn’t want to damage. Extending that limited access down to the center of Hadley isn’t very consistent.

C: DP: You know the biggest thing we are confronted with today is our commercial district and Amazon. More people are shopping online and less people are going to the Malls. We are considering protecting our businesses.

C: MT: That’s an indirect effect of improving mobility of the corridor. People might be encouraged more to make that trip. Personally I can’t buy online because packages get stolen off my stoop but I live in a different place than Hadley.

C: JC: You probably took from the meeting that we don’t want this to look like Memorial Drive, because that isn’t what Hadley is. Three lanes looked a little bit better than your four lanes.

C: RM: I’m thinking of College Highway in Southwick. We did that project about four or five years ago. It went from two-lanes to three-lanes with the center turn lanes. We saw that crashes went down almost 50% between the three years before construction and three years after construction. I think the traffic there is 17,000 cars a day, so it’s not quite as heavy as Route 9, but still fairly heavy traffic.

C: JW: We’ve got Smith College, The City of Northampton, the Malls, Hadley, the Town of Amherst and UMass. With the budget constraints we have now we really need to consider grants for our water and sewers as you plan our road.

A: MT: I think there are plenty of funding opportunities from places such as MassWorks that we could potentially dovetail and try to work towards.

Q: Molly Keegan (MK): Just a question to sort of separate fact from fiction, I know a couple of people have suggested to me that the state is motivated to do three lanes instead of four might have to do with cost. Is there a limited cost differential between the two?

A: MT: There is a cost differential to be transparent. It’s not coming out of my pocket or the states pocket, rather this is a decision that is made regionally with respect to what the best fit is. To be totally honest, when we first set out here, we thought for sure we were building four lanes. The three-lane alternative was originally driven by a need to conduct the environmental impact study under the State environmental review policy, MEPA, or Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act. That requires us to analyze ways to minimize and mitigate our environmental impact. As we started looking at it we started figuring out ways to be more flexible and discovered more lanes aren’t better lanes. From other examples across the state, that inside lane becomes the de facto left-lane and safety suffers. From a traditional engineering perspective, more lanes were better and you can move more cars. Now we specifically looked at the conditions here in Hadley. The three lane alternative is a little bit cheaper, but it is also the right fit.

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C: MK: The other thing is the safety consideration that comes into play.

C: JD: One of the benefits of a three-lane section as opposed to a four-lane section is the room for pedestrians and bicyclists. It is far safer. A three-lane section can still be a corridor where people want to come and spend time. Once you go to the four-lanes it becomes a car centric corridor and drives away the use of pedestrians and bicyclists.

C: MT: A three-lane alternative also leaves a little bit more room for pedestrian and bicycle accommodations. We conservatively show the on street bike lane here since that’s our most basic approach, but we think there are some other opportunities, especially with that narrower road section that we design something more than that. Rich is from the District Two Office and ultimately they have to approve this, so perhaps I’m speaking too soon. In the future we can really get into the design rather than the planning and development. Perhaps we can narrow that down and provide space for a shared use path on the side of the road.

C: RM: We are providing a separated shared-use path on the Morgan Sullivan Bridge that connects Agawam to West Springfield in order to provide some context. Originally it was a bridge widening job and based on the goals of Agawam and West Springfield, we are building a better bicycling network in that community. When they put the park and ride at the Airport, I thought it wouldn’t be used much but I’ve been amazed at the number of people. Has anything like this been done in the Amherst area?

C: MT: Northampton has a park and ride but I think what he means is across the corridor. Right now we’ve got our mobility study done and we’ve determined which alternative we think fits best here. We’re here to get some feedback from you all and get that gut check locally. The next step is that we initiative this through the MEPA state environmental review and once that has been certified by the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, we progress through our more typical design procedure.

We then move into final design and eventually construction. That said, I did not put the dates on here because we are not quite sure. Right now the region has federal funds programed in 2020 for a piece of this project. What I’ve learned over my 9 years at MassDOT is that projects can get broken into pieces based on what money is available. We could prioritize certain pieces such as the safety issues at East Street. Things get built most often because they are ready and also because they are a priority. The roundabout over in Northampton is currently one of the higher priorities in the region for improving mobility. That’s something that MassDOT is taking very seriously. That project needs to be addressed first.

C: GD: We assumed that roundabout is going to be a lot more like our friends down in Agawam.

C: JM: That project is not like the one in Agawam where you have an old rotary that’s been retrofitted to function better.

C: MT: While the one lane roundabout sounds very similar, they function differently. The one lane roundabout is to slow cars down and make it smoother for each leg of the intersection. In our case, this Page 11

roundabout will favor the Route 9 movement since it’s one of the heavier movements and will process the traffic substantially more than what’s there now.

Q: JC: Will there be any traffic signals associated with the roundabout?

C: MT: No.

Q: JC: How are you going come off Damon Road?

A: MT: It’s all about balancing. We all know Damon Road is a big issue. When I was standing there earlier this evening watching the operations it was very clear that the heavy movement was along Route 9.

C: JC: You’re right. It’s the heavier movement but when you are on Damon Road it’s going to be difficult to get out.

C: MT: It’s all about perspective. I’m guessing you come home on Damon Road?

C: JC: I do, but not only that; you have the bicycle light that really ties up traffic there too.

C: MK: We are getting sidetracked. The roundabout job is a separate project.

A: MT: You know you’re right, I’m happy to entertain that. Designing a transportation project is never simple.

C: JC: We’re worried about our small businesses that are from here to East Street. They are worried about the timing of the project. I want to know what you are going to do to help them in the next phase of project.

A: MT: Those sorts of details will definitely come out in the design.

C: JW: We have some questions about Bay Road for Rich Masse.

C: MT: I’ll turn it over to Rich in a moment. This is our website for the project.3 I’ve checked and I’m going to post that transit route map. We have the presentation from the stakeholder group posted. It’s a little more extensive but pretty much the same presentation you saw tonight. The minutes will get posted and if you are interested in staying involved please sign-in. In terms of timing and construction, we will definitely specify as we get further in the design process. A 100% design is really where we figure out how the thing gets built and whether there are stages to construction. This is really us making that big step forward; we passed the planning stage into development. We think three-lanes is the preferred alternative and we will advance that into environmental review.

3 https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/highway/HighlightedProjects/Route9CorridorImprovementProject.aspx

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Q: DP: One quick question. Back when we did the four-lanes from the Coolidge Bridge to West Street the stretch of roadway was designated as a corridor of concern. Does this have that same tag?

A: MT: I am not aware of that designation.

Q: DP: Is there any chance of getting that taken care of, in terms of importance to get that project done in the area?

A: MT: I’m not sure if PVPC uses terms like that. It’s really about the region and how they allocate their disposable funds.

C: JW: You know as more funds become available from the federal government, it’s very important to have projects shovel ready.

C: MT: This team is really aware of the need to have this ready and designed if funds do become available. John’s our civil engineer and I think he’s dying to get going on design.

C: DP: I really do like these stakeholder meetings. It’s really informative and really brings everyone together.

C: MT: Thank you for saying that and that you for having us.

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Appendix 1: Meeting Attendees

First Name Last Name Affiliation

Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis Howard Stein Hudson Joyce Chunglo Hadley Board of Selectmen Jason DeGray Toole Design Group Gerald Devine Hadley Board of Selectmen Molly Keegan Hadley Board of Selectmen Mark Kotowoski MassDOT Richard Masse MassDOT – D2 David Nixon Town Administrator John Osorio GPI Donald Pipczynski Hadley Board of Selectmen Carolyn Radisch GPI Michael Trepanier MassDOT John Waskiewicz Hadley Board of Selectmen

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