WESTFIELD—Many residents may have seen the sketching of traffic lines on Franklin Street recently. Well, by tonight those should be fully painted lines, giving traffic some new direction on the busy street.
According to Mark Cressotti, city engineer for Westfield, Franklin Street is undergoing a “road diet,” which essentially is a slimming of existing lanes that allows for additional traffic flow improvements on a roadway. The process is being done to better accommodate different modes of travel, especially bicycle.
“This is sort of a continuation of an effort we did on Court Street and West Silver Street,” Cressotti said.
According to Cressotti, the roadway will be reduced from four travel lanes for motorized vehicles to three. One of those three travel lanes will be a multi-turn lane, similar to what is seen on North Elm Street.
Sketching on Franklin Street that shows the eventual line painting
“Given the traffic volumes that you experience on Franklin Street it’s something that can be achieved,” Cressotti said. “The multi-turn central lane is removing the passing lanes, so we are just merging that function and that accommodates for additional pavement for bike lanes.”
The work on Franklin Street will allow for a continuation of a connection to the Columbia Greenway, as well as to Westfield State University. And eventually, Cressotti said it will reach downtown.
Painting is expected to be done at night tonight, and Cressotti said that this should not impede rush hour traffic.
