The Ayer Road renovation project will move forward, according to a Tuesday vote by the Select Board.
The board approved the project as specified in a 25% design document unveiled in late March by Massaschusetts Department of Transportation, but with minor changes as negotiated among a group that included former Select Board member Stu Sklar, Town Administrator Tim Bragan, Department of Public Works Director Tim Kilhart, and MassDOT officials. The board accepted the plan with modifications as described by Bragan at the meeting. The unanimous vote, with Charles Oliver absent, ended the possibility of a roundabout being included in the project.
The minor changes to the plan addressed the board’s complaints that the total width of the road was excessive, and that traffic-calming measures were insufficient. Instead of 2- to 4-foot shoulders on each side, Bragan said the renovation will now include a 3-foot shoulder on the south side of Ayer Road and a 2-foot shoulder on the north. The width of travel lanes will be 11 feet, instead of 11 to 12 feet. And the six crosswalks will now include bump-outs, which shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians and, in narrowing vehicular lanes, can also slow traffic. The pedestrian-bicyclist path, to be built only on the post office side of the road, is unchanged from the original at a width of between 8 and 10 feet. The buffer strips on each side of the road are also unchanged, varying from 3 to 5 feet.
Previous debate by the Select Board about the need for a roundabout, which was not recommended by the 25% design plan, ended when the board learned in a May 10 letter from Marie Joyce Rose, MassDOT director of roadway project management, that changing over from realigned intersections to a roundabout would delay the project and incur extra costs for revised design and right of way plans. This month the board also learned that traffic counts between 2019 and 2022 had not increased enough, according to MassDOT standards, to warrant a roundabout.
The renovation—from the Route 2 interchange to the Ayer town line—is scheduled to begin in 2026 at an estimated cost of $10 million, with 80% federal and 20% state monies; Harvard pays for the design and land takings.
