WESTFIELD – Last night, the Westfield Conservation Commission initiated its review of the city’s plans to reconfigure the intersection of North Elm and Notre Dame streets, a project which includes improvements to the stormwater management system.
The Commission voted to continue the public hearing at least until its Feb. 27, meeting because the state Department of Environmental Protection has yet to issue a file number for the work.
City Engineer Mark Cressotti said the road improvements, which include stormwater drainage, begin just north of the intersection at the south bank of Powdermill Brook and is within the Conservation Commission jurisdiction because part of the work is occurring within the 200-foot buffer zone of the brook.
Gene Crouch of the Vanasse Hangen Brustlin (VHB) Inc. Watertown office said that sedimentation of Powdermill Brook has raised the level of the water at the drainage outfall.
“Right now, even during normal flow, the pipe is half filled with brook water,” Crouch said. “A lot of the flooding in the intersection is due to water backing up from the brook.”
Cressotti said that when the brook is higher following a rain event or snow-melt, it actually uses the drainage system as an overflow.
“The brook is flowing through the drainage piping system to the Westfield River,“ Cressotti said.
Cressotti said the intersection reconfiguration will improve traffic flow and alleviate the current drainage problems at the intersection.
The plan is to widen both streets to create dedicated left turning lanes, both northbound and southbound, on North Elm Street, and to widen the throat of upper Notre Dame Street at the intersection to accommodate turning movement by commercial vehicles and school buses.
The left turning lane south of the intersection will be extended down to the 9/11 memorial obelisk to accommodate left turns into the businesses and side streets on the east side of North Elm Street and into businesses on the west side of that roadway.
Cressotti said another major change will be revamping of drainage. Currently the area near the intersection is designed to drain into Powdermill Brook. The problem is that the brook often backflows down the pipes, resulting in flooding of the intersection.
Crouch said that section of drainage pipe, running north from the intersection into Powdermill Brook, will be sealed and all of the drainage will flow south to the Westfield River to alleviate flooding at the intersection.
Cressotti said a high section of the drainage pipe between the McDonald’s restaurant and the Dunkin Donuts will be replaced to create a gravity drainage system from the intersection to the river.
New traffic signals, now supported by span poles, will be hung from cables which will require the installation of new support poles on the corners of the intersection, work which is also in the riverfront protection area that will be reviewed by the Conservation Commission.
Crouch said that road work within the 200-foot buffer zone of the brook will be limited to milling and replacing the existing pavement and that the brook will be protected by erosion control measures.
“Within the buffer zone, everything we’re doing is already paved,” Crouch said.
The road widening begins at the outer boundary of the 200-foot riverfront buffer zone, and that area, the parking directly in front of the Mestek office building, is also currently paved.
The project includes construction of a new parking lot off upper Notre Dame Street and an additional turning lane into Mestek, formerly Anderson Printing, from North Elm Street. The two lots are not connected under the present design.
The intersection reconfiguration is being designed by VHB, while the reconfiguration of the road is being designed by Tighe & Bond of Westfield. Tighe & Bond has submitted documentation to the state Department of Transportation to establish a truck exclusion zone on lower Notre Dame Street and the side streets east of North Elm Street, frequently used by commercial trucks as a shortcut to Union Street, as part of its design effort.
