WESTFIELD – City officials conducted an informal meeting with residents last night following the conclusion of the state Department of Transportation formal public hearing on construction of the north phase of the Columbia Greenway.
The informal hearing dealt with a much broader range of topics, although much of it was related to the continued extension of the Columbia Greenway.
Topics included the bicycle and pedestrian access to the rail trail, bicyclist and pedestrian safety and traffic calming measures to encourage motorists to share city roads with alternative forms of traffic.
“We’re putting the four lane streets, Court and Franklin, on a diet, down to three lanes with dedicated left turn area and with bicycle lanes,” said City Engineer Mark Cressotti. “Lane markings were recently painted on Court and West Silver Streets and will be put on Franklin Street next year after the roadway is repaved.”
Cressotti said that city officials are working to increase accommodations for bicyclists on streets which will feed traffic to the Columbia Greenway as that project progresses.
Cressotti said the Columbia Greenway is an exciting project because only one section of the rail trail, at Shaker Road, requires a road grade crossing.
“This is an elevated corridor through the center of the city,” Cressotti said. “There is only one other elevated rail train, 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 for repaired.
Cressotti also presented details of the next phase of work, being funded through a $2 million grant by the Executive Officer of Environmental Affairs, which was extend the trail to the area of Main Street.
The scope of work includes installation of a new bridge over East Silver Street and a 25-foot-long underpass linking the St. Dennis Street/Hedges Avenue neighborhood with that of the Ashley Street/Taylor Avenue neighborhood.
Several residents of those neighborhoods expressed reservations. One resident asked if the underpass will be well-lighted because of concerns that people already living on top of the former railroad will take up residence in the underpass.
Sgt. Eric Hall of the Community Policing Unit said that the advantage that Westfield has for enforcement is that the underpass is at street level and a patrol officer can see through the underpass from either side of the structure.
Hall said that Southwick has enforcement issues in the underpass below Point Grove Road because of the difficult access to that tunnel from the street.
“Their officers have to climb down and up a steep slope on a goat path,” Hall said. “This underpass is at street level so a patrol officer will be able to see straight through it.”
Cressotti said the purpose of the underpass is to address “the desire line” indicated by the existing and well-worn path over the former railroad.
“If we don’t address that desire, those people with just climb over the rail trail,” Cressotti said, which creates a safety concern.
Cressotti said the underpass will provide access for residents of Ashley Street neighborhood to a ramp on the St. Dennis Street side of the elevated trail.
Residents also discussed installation of a new bridge across Main Street which will be included in some future phase of the trail construction. Several speakers expressed concern that a new bridge will, as the former railroad bridge did, segregate the downtown area from the rest of Main Street.
Cressotti said the cost estimate for the Main Street Bridge is $1 million and that it will be designed as a gateway to the city’s business CORE district, not 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.
