Pedestrian safety will be the main focus of a public forum on Thursday, May 26, at 7 p.m. at Hildreth Elementary School. The meeting will address proposals contained in a traffic study of Harvard’s town center, started in the spring of 2015 and recently completed. The suggested improvements encompass an area including the town beach; the public library; the schools; the General Store; the Congregational, Unitarian, and Catholic churches; the Common; the fire station; the senior center at Hildreth House; Town Hall; and the old library.
“The main goal is to make the town center more pedestrian-friendly,” said Town Planner Bill Scanlan this week in an interview at Interim Town Hall. Scanlan also noted that early conceptual plans for altering town center traffic patterns, including a traffic circle, were eliminated from consideration by the committee in charge of presenting the traffic study—the Town Center Transportation Committee—and deleted from the final draft. The study will be available on the town’s website in the coming weeks, Scanlan said.
Improvements could be eligible for state funding
The 75-page study was written by the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission (MRPC) and paid for by a state grant. Improvement projects to come out of the study—including walkways, signage, crosswalks, curbing, and marked parking spaces—could be eligible for funding through the state’s Complete Streets Program, according to Planning Board Chairwoman Kara Minar. The board, Minar said, is now evaluating the application required to qualify for the program.
Improvements to be discussed at next Thursday’s public forum were chosen by the Town Center Transportation Committee from a larger set of potential solutions in the traffic study. Several of the suggested projects are summarized here.
General Store traffic
The traffic study describes the area surrounding the General Store as an “undefined street edge with poor crosswalks” that has led to chaotic traffic patterns and “unsafe conditions.” To better manage the flow, the committee wants to add a sidewalk from the Congregational Church (as part of a wider sidewalk system) to the General Store, and add “curb stops” to demarcate spaces in the lot. Traffic patterns in and out of the lot would be managed through marked entry and exit points closer to the Congregational Church than to the General—the better to avoid entering the lot close to the intersection—and the addition of curbing at the corner of Still River and Ayer roads.
Sidewalks, crosswalks
The existing sidewalks along Elm Street and Ayer Road would be upgraded to accommodate disabled people and extended to reach Town Hall and the Unitarian Church. A new sidewalk would start at St. Theresa’s Church, continue past the Congregational Church, turn the corner at the General Store, and continue down the Bromfield School side of Mass. Ave. to Pond Road. The parallel parking that currently exists along Mass. Ave., again on the Bromfield side, would be marked and separated from the new walkway by curbing. A plan to allow for safe passage between Ayer Road, Fairbank Street, and Littleton and Old Littleton roads calls for a mix of upgraded and new sidewalks. In addition, the town center’s two skewed crosswalks would be eliminated and realigned with the new sidewalk system. (The study had identified the existing, green-painted walks as “poorly designed crosswalks” that result in “pedestrian exposure to traffic for a maximum amount of time.”)
Plans that show better pedestrian connections from the town center to the town beach and to the schools and within the Bromfield and Hildreth campuses, will also be presented at the forum.
Town center parking
The paving of a dirt parking lot (called the “North Lot” in previous planning studies) at the Bromfield School, scheduled for this summer, fulfills some parking needs identified in the study. The committee is calling for the lot to be connected to the existing path that leads to the town center near the Congregational Church.
Early plans to create parking spaces on a short, unmarked street that connects Mass. Ave. to Fairbank Street (Cemetery Street) were dropped after the committee learned that the property’s deed prohibits parking.
Although the traffic study looked at parking and traffic patterns among Town Hall, Hildreth House, and the fire station, fully formed recommendations will not be offered at the forum, because plans are still evolving. “The Town Center Transportation Committee has not been authorized to take the lead on [traffic and parking] at the Town Hall campus,” explained Scanlan. To develop those plans, he said, will require additional discussion among the Planning Board, the Board of Selectmen, the Town Hall and Hildreth House Construction Committee, the town administrator, and other town departments, including fire, public works, and police.
Bicycle paths
Plans to improve bicyclist safety in the town center consist largely of improved lane markings, including shared lane, stop, and directional symbols. The committee rejected plans for buffered or separated bike lanes in the town center, given the limited area that would be covered by such lanes.
