Officials: Time to revisit intersection problems
By Caitlyn Kelleher

Traffic moves through the South Street and Main Street intersection throughout the day but levels increase during rush hour.

The long-awaited plan to rehab South Street and reconfigure its intersection with Main Street is back up for public review.

Town officials met Sept. 28 with engineers to discuss a project that has taken a front-seat recently and prepare for a meeting with MassHighway officials.

"You have a lot of things going

on out there," said Robert Prudhomme of SEA Consultants Inc., the principal engineer on the project. "What makes this more difficult is the grade (height) difference between Academy Hill Road and 2A."

The meeting included the selectmen, DPW Director William Wintturi, Town Coordinator Karen Murphy, Westminster Elementary School Principal David Marble, and representatives from the parks and recreation committee, the police and fire departments and the planning board.

The plan is part of the MassHighway project and there is already approval for the state to reimburse part of the project cost. The original survey for the project was done in 1998 and 1999, before the construction of the new town hall and renovations at the elementary school.

"We need to make sure what we think is out there is," Prudhomme said.

Betsy Frederick of SEA said the project never stopped but it was put on the back burner after SEA bought the engineering firm working on it in the 1990s.

"This has become an imminent issue," she said.

A traffic study, verification of property ownership and

review of the playing fields will be required, she said.

A study of the land surrounding the immediate area will be conducted, including some review of the development along Main Street.

"The whole drainage pattern has changed," Wintturi said.

Stormwater management has also become a major issue for the project with the increasing runoff collecting behind the public safety building, Prudhomme said.

"MassHighway doesn't want major work on 2A (Main Street)," he said.

Town officials warned the area behind the public safety building is swampy.

"You are dealing with an area where they used to (ice) skate from here to Nicholas Street," said Preston Baker, a member of the public works commission."

Selectmen agreed that addressing the drainage issue is priority. They plan to ask voters to appropriate money at the special town meeting this fall.

Town officials encouraged Prudhomme and the other engineers to design a plan that would allow some of the stormwater to be routed down Main Street to an area where a dam once stood near Pleasant Street.

The goal is to consider "what opportunities do we have at the South Street-Main Street design," Prudhomme said.

Town officials also discussed the possibility of buying other property to make the project work.

"You have to take the gas station," Baker said.

Most town officials expressed their agreement on that issue. The station has been empty for many years.

"We're keeping the cracker factory," Selectman Lorraine Emerson. "So we have to do something other than that."

Prudhomme said one of his goals is to take down the electrical pole in the island in the middle of the intersection.

On South Street the goal is to create a slight shift in the roadway alignment along South Street near where it curves near Dolly Road.

"It doesn't work now," Prudhomme said.

The roadway was slightly changed the last time it was paved but the engineer said the design is pushing traffic in a way that bothers the homes on the street more than is necessary. He is also recommending an entire re-paving of the street so that it will last longer.

Another aim is to create more of a barrier between the street and baseball fields located directly off the road. One of the suggestions is to place a retaining wall along the edge with a sidewalk.

Town officials expressed concerns that children would use the ledge as a high jump and parents would use it as seating to watch games. Prudhomme said he would look into a variety of options and present them to the town for further review.

"There has to be look," Prudhomme said. "There has to be character."

-- Caitlyn Kelleher can be reached at (978) 827-3386, ext. 15, or e-mail: caitlynkelleher@aol.com