The Select Board has resolved to include a traffic circle in the Ayer Road repaving project. This $6 million project would repave and realign Ayer Road, and would be paid for using a federal grant allocated by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). At the board’s Sept. 1 meeting, Department of Public Works Director Tim Kilhart reported that MassDOT is open to the idea of building the traffic circle, which it had previously opposed. The proposed location of the traffic circle is the intersection of Ayer Road and Gebo Lane, next to the post office.
Harvard would need to justify its request by providing evidence that the traffic circle would reduce the number of traffic crashes. According to Kilhart, MassDOT requested that Harvard use a computer modeling tool called SPICE (Safety Performance for Intersection Control Evaluation) to make such safety estimates. Kilhart also warned that attempting to add the traffic circle to the project would delay its starting time and that MassDOT might ultimately reject the request anyway.
The Select Board put board member Kara Minar in charge of working with the consultants who handle the SPICE tool. Minar is a proponent of the traffic circle and described it as important not only to the road’s immediate safety but also to the long-term development of the Ayer Road commercial district.
