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WESTFIELD – The Columbia Greenway Rail Trail contractor has cut a breech through the multi-use trail to install an underpass which will connect two neighborhoods long separated by the elevated structure which once carried rail traffic and freight over city streets in the downtown area.
The contractor, ET&L Corporation of Stow, is extending the rail trail from East Silver Street to the area of Main Street, work that includes installing a new bridge over East Silver Street and installing a 25-foot-long underpass, linking the Hedges Avenue/St. Dennis Street neighborhood with the Taylor Avenue/Ashley Street neighborhood.
The purpose of the underpass is to increase access to the Columbia Greenway. A ramp will be constructed on the Hedges Avenue side of the underpass, a pre-stressed concrete structure now being hoisted by huge cranes into place in the breech, cut through the rail trail earlier this week.
Because of the close proximity of Taylor Avenue and homes built at the base of the elevated railroad structure, there is not sufficient room to construct an access ramp up to the rail trail from that side.
City Engineer Mark Cressotti said, at a state Department of Transportation meeting last November, that the purpose of the underpass is to address a “desire line” indicated by the existing and well-worn path over the former railroad linking the two neighborhoods.
“If we don’t address that desire, those people with just climb over the rail trail,” Cressotti said, “which creates a safety concern.”
The city was awarded a $2 million grant from the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to extend the Columbia Greenway from its current terminus on the south side of East Silver Street to the area of the Stop & Shop supermarket on Main Street.
“This is an elevated corridor through the center of the city,” Cressotti said. “There is only one other elevated rail trail, located in Manhattan, in the entire country.”
Cressotti said the Columbia Greenway project was broken into phases because of the costs associated with an elevated trail and the number of former railroad bridges which have to be replaced or repaired.
The current work will complete the South phase of the rail trail project, extending the Greenway from the Southwick line to Main Street. The state is preparing to advertise the contract for the North phase, rehabilitation of the former Pioneer Valley Railroad Bridge over the Westfield River, later this year, with work projected to start during the 2016 construction season.
The Central phase, from Main Street to the Westfield River, comes with the highest price tag, an estimated $7 million because it involved replacement of bridges over Main Street, Thomas Street, Chapel Street and Orange Street.
The former railroad bridge across Elm Street will not be replaced because it has been deemed an architecturally significant structure by the state. It will be raised to increase clearance to 14 feet, 6 inches. The cost of rehabilitating and raising that structure is projects at $1.4 million.
Cressotti said the cost estimate for the Main Street Bridge is $1 million and that is will be designed as a gateway to the city’s business CORE district, not as a visual impediment. Cressotti said the bridge will be designed to replicate the appearance of the Great River Sister Bridges and that it will be erected on top of the existing stone abutments from the former bridge.
