Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
MEMORANDUM
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS • EFFECTIVE PARTNERING ®
July 24, 2012
To:
Mike Bloukos
Project Manager – Route 9/I-290
MassDOT Highway Division
Through:
Richard Lennox
Project Manager
WSP Sells
From:
Nathaniel Curtis
Howard/Stein-Hudson
Public Involvement Specialist
RE:
Public Information Meeting
Route 9 over I-290 Bridge Rehabilitation
MassDOT project no. 604065
HSH project no. 2012127
Overview
On June 13, 2013 members of the MassDOT design team for the Belmont Street Bridge Rehabilitation
project held a public information meeting at the UMass Memorial Hospital on Belmont Street in Worcester.
The purpose of the meeting was to brief members of the community, hospital staff, and local elected officials
on changes to the project’s design since the 25% design public hearing held earlier in the year. Many of the
changes highlighted at the meeting are the result of input from the community obtained both at the 25%
design public hearing and in subsequent meetings held with individual abutters in the project area.
Overall, these changes were positively received by the audience members; however audience comments
also underscored the need for public outreach to continue past the design phase and throughout the
construction period set to begin in 2014. Pedestrian accommodations at the crosswalk directly in front of
UMass Memorial Hospital remains a significant issue for local elected officials even though this crossing falls
technically outside the limits of work for the project. The Belmont Street Bridge crosses I-290 just east of
Lincoln Square in Worcester. The work is not particularly challenging from an engineering and construction
perspective, but the location of the bridge and the volume of traffic over it prompted MassDOT to undertake
a higher level of outreach for the project’s design than would normally be done for a project of this size and
scope.
Meeting Minutes1
C: Mike Bloukos (MB): Good evening and welcome to this presentation. My name is Michael Bloukos and I
am the MassDOT project manager for this job working at 10 Park Plaza in Boston. I would like to
welcome you all here tonight. Considering that we are having a public information meeting tonight and
not an official hearing, this will be more casual like some of the other meetings we have had for this
project over the past year.
1
Project materials can be reviewed at www.mass.gov/massdot/belmontstbridge.
38 Chauncy Street, 9th Floor  Boston, Massachusetts 02111  617.482.7080
www.hshassoc.com
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I would now like to take a moment and introduce everyone work working on the project. Our design
consultants from WSP Sells are Rich Lennox and John Wicks. From MassDOT District 3 we have Tom
Emerick and Joe Frawley with Mario Russo representing the Right-of-Way (ROW) bureau. Our public
involvement staff includes Stephanie Boundy with MassDOT and Nate Cabral-Curtis and Galen Allis
from Howard-Stein-Hudson. I would like to say for the record that we have advertised extensively in the
local newspapers in English, Spanish and Vietnamese, in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Vocerco
Hispano and The Bell respectively. We have interpreters available for Spanish and Vietnamese so please
raise your hand if you require their services. I’d now like to turn this over to Stephanie Boundy.
C: Stephanie Boundy (SB): Good evening and on behalf of MassDOT thank you all for coming out tonight
and thank you for the use of the hospital. I’d like to recognize Councilor Palmieri and Moses Dixon from
Senator Keefe’s Office. I understand that Senator Chandler is on her way and will be joining us later
this evening. After tonight’s meeting we’ll be launching a project website
(www.mass.gov/massdot/belmontstbridge) to help communicate with abutters throughout the duration
of the project. At this point I’d like to turn it back of the to the project team.
C: MB: Thank you Stephanie; before we go any further, I’d like to remind you all to please sign in on the
sheets just outside the door and to take some of the handouts which detail information on the project.
At this point, I’d like to ask Nate to come up to talk about public involvement for the project.
C: Nate Cabral-Curtis (NCC): Good evening everyone; it’s nice to see a mix of new and old faces here
tonight. Thank you for coming. Let me start by showing you the project team members. MassDOT is
responsible for the project as the owner of the Belmont Street Bridge. They provide oversight and
coordination among the members of the team. WSP Sells is the engineering consultant responsible for
designing the new bridge and Howard/Stein-Hudson is in charge of public involvement.
The public involvement for this project has been more than what would generally be done for a job of
this size on account of the nature of the project: where it is located, right next to Lincoln Square, and
how much traffic uses Belmont Street. We started our outreach last October with a meeting for
downtown stakeholders at the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Council, had a public
information meeting in November, held the 25% design public hearing at the end of January, which we
followed up with some individual abutter meetings at 67 Belmont Street and the Chinese Gospel
Church, and a meeting in March here at the hospital, and that brings us to tonight. We have a
stakeholder database with over 100 entries and using that we sent out email and telephone reminders
about tonight, as Mike said we have generally advertised these meetings in three languages and we
have coordinated our outreach with the CMRPC. The website Stephanie mentioned is live and you can
find it easily by putting Belmont Street Bridge into your search engine. I’d definitely encourage you to
take a look at that. Now, I’ll hand this off to the Sells team.
C: MB: Great, thank you, Nate. Since this project started some time ago, I won’t bore you with the earlier
information, but I want to stress that a result of our January 31st, 2013 public hearing was that we found
out that there were some significant concerns about the project and as such we have adjusted our
approach. What you see tonight is slightly different from what some of you might have seen in January
because of those adjustments and improvements that are applicable to the job and we would like to talk
to you about them now.
C: Rich Lennox (RL): I’m Rich Lennox with WSP Sells: the design consultant on this project. I’d like to start by
taking you through design and project scope. The goal of us being here is to replace the bridge which
takes Belmont Street over I-290 and to figure out how to keep traffic moving while we do it. The project
limits of work are the approximate ¼ mile of Belmont Street centered on the bridge and there’s some
work on I-290 as well. The reason why we’re here is the replacement of the bridge. We will replace the
superstructure entirely and reuse some of the substructure though we will be replacing the center pier
which is down between the two directions of I-290. Our current estimated cost for the project is $9.8
million.
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One of the things we’ve looked at is accelerating the pace of construction and that includes some precast elements which are fabricated at an off-site plant and set in place in the field. We will be
constructing the new center pier off to the side of existing center pier to minimize impacts to traffic.
Here’s a view of the existing bridge and here’s a rendering of the proposed replacement. You can see
it’s very similar except we have a concrete parapet instead of this steel railing.
This plan shows the reconstruction as happening in two primary phases. One of the important elements
of this job is that the new bridge is going to be one lane wider than the current structure. That
overbuilding allows us to phase construction to help keep traffic moving and in the final condition a
westbound left turn lane which will ease congestion at this location. The construction has two major
phases. In the first one, all of the new construction is to the south side of the bridge. Today, Belmont
Street has four lanes, two in each direction. During construction, we will reduce that to one lane
westbound and two lanes eastbound. That will allow for left turns to be made onto Oak Street without
tying up traffic on the bridge. Under this scheme we’d also allow all turning movements from the I-290
off-ramp and access to Converse Street. We do need to temporarily take a lane from the I-290 off-ramp
to give the contractor room to work. The major change from today is that westbound traffic will not be
able to make a left onto I-290 during construction. All of the traffic signals will be maintained and that’s
primarily to facilitate pedestrian movement through the work zone. On the topic of pedestrians we are
proposing a temporary pedestrian bridge just north of the existing structure which would allow
pedestrians to cross I-290 during construction. This allows us to use the space currently occupied by the
sidewalk on the north side of the existing bridge for vehicular traffic which gives us more room and lets
us have the three lane profile. Phase two is the mirror opposite of phase one with the work happening
on the north side of the existing structure. With 50% of the work done we can demolish the remaining
portion of the old bridge and begin reconstructing it. All movements and connections from the off-ramp
remain the same. The westbound left turn to I-290 remains restricted and pedestrians would remain on
the temporary pedestrian bridge to give us room to work. The turn restriction does mean a detour and
we will have portable message signs on Shrewsbury Street and MLK Boulevard well in advance of the
project areas to give drivers plenty of advance notice.
So, in the final configuration we have a five lane cross-section with two eastbound and two westbound
travel lanes with a dedicated westbound left turn lane to facilitate access to I-290. There will be new
sidewalks on both sides and after the I-290 off-ramp; we’ll taper the profile of the roadway back down
to meet existing conditions. Another concern we’ve heard about is the pedestrian crossing right in front
of the hospital which is a high accident location particularly for pedestrians; someone got hit there right
after our meeting in March. We’ve been having discussions with MassDOT about extending our project
limits of work to address that. One idea is this sign with blinking lights which will trigger when the
pedestrian pushes a button to give a very strong indication to motorists that someone is trying to cross.
The schedule is running on time. We’re hoping to advertise prior to October with construction starting
early next spring. We’re looking at two construction seasons, but with the traffic restrictions limited to
around thirteen months. At this point I’ll turn it back over to Mike.
C: MB: O.K. good. Thank you. We’ll now take questions and comments.
Q: Councilor Phillip Palmieri (PP): The crosswalk area in front of the hospital has always been an issue. The
director of the Rainbow Child Development Center got hit when she left our meeting here in March and
was injured. I’m not sure, but she may still be recovering. The crosswalk sign you mentioned, does the
whole thing light up?
A: RL: Let me just flip back to that slide for a moment. As you can see there’s a sign above with the
pedestrian symbol and the arrow sign below that. In between is the high intensity flashing light. That’s
the only thing that lights up.
C: PP: I would hope that is not the final decision on the crosswalk because it is such a critical area with so
many pedestrians crossing not only from the hospital, but just residents of the area. I don’t know what
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these lights look like, but I’m concerned about how much attention they will grab, especially for drivers
in the day time. There have been a lot of accidents, even a death, and I’m not convinced this is the
answer. I hope this isn’t the final answer. What might make some sense is to discuss what other options
there are and what the options look like. What are the costs? It would be for us, as a community, and
especially at the hospital if we could look at something other than this. Last time you were here, the
idea of a foot bridge, like at the community school was discussed, to allow pedestrians to just across
above this section of roadway. I would hope you would look at this and even some other intersection
areas. This might be better up the street as a stop-gap measure. I know you are engineers and I
respect your training, but I feel this is really important. I know traffic patterns are important, but safety is
bigger for me.2
A: RL: This is an option; I don’t think it’s set in stone.
C: PP: We would like to see some other options as well.
A: MB: I know this has been discussed in some detail and we’re looking to convene a Road Safety Audit
(RSA) as part of addressing issues along the whole Belmont Street corridor, but as a general rule, the
Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which is sort of our bible, describes that variations of what
you see here. There are some options with additional flashing beacons or two signs, maybe some mast
arms, but they are all along the lines of a flashing light to attract the driver’s attention; they’re all along
the same theme.
C: PP: When you talk about flashing lights, for those who are visually impaired, it won’t help. For those
impaired in other ways, this won’t help them get across the road. At some locations, you hear tweets,
and countdowns which we aren’t seeing here and I don’t understand why you don’t suggest that. We
want to see fewer fatalities and a better quality of life for the community so that they can have a
comfortable walk not only around the new bridge but also along this boulevard of broken dreams. I
hope you will look into this further and I do think that when we walk about these issues it would make
sense to reach out to the community with leaflets at the schools to bring more residents into the
discussion and get the true feelings of everyone so we can have something more coordinated. Not more
financially intensive, but to really get people talking about it and thinking about it. I do think this is
important because I get calls from people saying “what about we people up on the hill? How are we
going to get across the street?” Leaflets at the schools would be effective and maybe not cheap, but
worth it. I hope we can keep this discussion alive.
Q: RL: Does the City have any of these at other locations? Joe, I’m looking at you on this one.
A: Joe Borbone (JB): We have a new installation at 325 Pleasant Street near the elderly high-rise. So,
anyone interested in this particular machinery can go and see what it looks like.
Q: Representative Jim O’Day (JOD): Could you go back to the design where you talked about the
temporary cross-overs? No, the first one, where you talked about a little bit of a change from the
original plan, so first question: what exactly is that? How is it constructed?
A: RL: It’s a temporary bridge. I’d expect it to be a temporary, bailey-style, ACROW-panel bridge.
Q: JOD: So is that over streets?
2
At the meeting held on March 12, 2013, Councilor Palmieri made similar remarks regarding the possibility of a
footbridge at this location. Speaking on behalf of MassDOT District 3, Mickey Splaine indicated that such a
footbridge is unlikely for several reasons including the space required to get ADA-compliant ramps, the fact that
pedestrians with full mobility often opt to cross at-grade regardless of the bridge option, and because in current
planning practice, it is generally held that footbridges cue drivers that they are traveling in a space that they can
expect to be free of pedestrians which causes them to speed up.
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A: RL: No, that’s over I-290 giving pedestrians a sidewalk they can use during construction.
Q: JOD: And this is a new piece, at additional cost?
A: RL: Yes.
C: JOD: I appreciate that, and that you are involved in all these other projects, but I think why many people
are here tonight is not necessarily convenience or the lack of it, but safety. There really is a safety issue
and these lights you’re proposing may not be visible with the glare going over the bridge at the time
when children are crossing the road to and from the school. I cannot stress enough that regardless of
national standards, we are here in Worcester and this is the road we have to be concerned with and I
would appreciate seeing other options. I can point to other projects where the cost was not coming as
projected. We need to understand what the cost is and how we can make this a safer stretch of road.
A: MB: Some history: we identified two big concerns from the last meeting about access at Fountain and
Converse Streets. We met with both impacted groups and that resulted in altering the access at Belmont
Street. The idea of the pedestrian bridge came from our 25% design public hearing.
C: JOD: And I have no issue with that temporary pedestrian bridge; I think that’s fine. What I’m saying is
about the pedestrian safety issue in front of the hospital. We have a pedestrian bridge at the top of
Belmont Street.
A: MB: The MUTCD is an effort to find common solutions to common issues across the country. We are
aware of the safety concerns. We are trying to do the best we can and find something that will help
everyone be safer and feel better.
Q: JOD: O.K. Let me ask this: there will be no left turn from any lane but the left turn lane. My point is that
this can lead to another safety issue right there as the ramp from I-290, which already backs up today,
starts spilling back onto the highway. How will we notify people of the change and ensure they are
aware?
A: MB: There will be variable message boards along I-290 and we will be adding a detector towards the
lower end of the ramp. Once cars are on that detector, it will turn the light green at the top and clear
that traffic out.
Q: Name not Given (NNG): I live in the neighborhood, I walked here tonight, but I use the area as a driver
and a walker and I don’t know about this website you put up, but will that help people every day during
construction? Recently, in the morning, there was a steamroller being moved and a police officer
walking in front of it and it blocked traffic in one direction and caused a back-up. I worry that under
those kinds of conditions; people will be less concerned with safety and worry about just getting to work.
Is that kind of information going to be out there?
A: NCC: Right now the website supports this design process so it doesn’t have that sort of construction
period information on it, but typically, with projects like these, once you get into construction, MassDOT
would provide that kind of advanced warning information on things that impact traffic. Just remember:
you won’t see that sort of information until construction begins.
Q: NNG: Will it be specific to time? Will it say stuff like at 8AM this road will be blocked, but it will be O.K.
after 9AM?
A: MB: Once we’re in construction, the resident engineer and contractor will discuss together what will be
coming up in the next few days and weeks. Based on that information they would update the website for
any delays coming up.
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Q: NNG: Will it be specific to time of day? The police officer walking in front of the steamroller said they
would have no way of knowing when something like that would happen.
A: MB: We can only plan and estimate so much. We try to nail everything down in advance, but we can’t
predict every time that something in construction doesn’t go according to plan, but we will always try to
keep you up to date with advanced notice of things that impact commuting patterns.
C: NNG: Well even if it’s just that day, so we can get as much advance notice as possible, so we can say
“I’m going to take Catherine Street,” I won’t try to go this way because that is a safety issue, you’re
talking about this light and pedestrians and that’s part of it and all these people get stuck and they need
to get to work.
A: Tom Emerick (TE): Just to clear up some of the confusion, when we start construction on the project, if
you look at the area in yellow, that’s the only area the contractor is going to be working in so that area
is protected from pedestrians and traffic. Pedestrians would be crossing in the purple area so for all the
duration of construction…3
C: NNG: I’m talking about pedestrians crossing Belmont Street. I’m saying that when Belmont Street gets
crazy like right now when you’re working on the pond it becomes a safety issue.
A: TE: You’ll have traffic signals at both ends of the work zone. Those are really staying there during
construction for the benefit of pedestrians. Every time you press the button, you’ll get a pedestrian light
to get you across the street.
C: NNG: In theory, but in reality that doesn’t always happen.
A: TE: That’s not going to be a theory that will be the reality. That’s what’s going to happen.
C: NNG: In reality, people are trying to get to work. In theory, if you step on the crosswalk everyone is
supposed to stop.
A: TE: But this isn’t just a crosswalk, this is going to be a pedestrian actuated signal. You press the button
and the cars get a red light.
C: NNG: That will only make it worse.
A: TE: That’s what we have to do to protect the pedestrians. We’ll have a protected pedestrian phase at
this intersection and the other one at the other end of the work zone so the pedestrians will be protected
throughout construction.
C: NNG: But that means pedestrians will have to go all the way down to those particular places which they
don’t, get real, I live here and I know they just cross wherever.
A: TE: But if they want to cross safely, they need to use the designated crossings. That’s the same whether
a road is under construction or not. That’s what it is, those are the signals, those are the protections,
that will help keep pedestrians out of the work zone and you will have to cross at the signal. That’s what
people have to do to cross safely, there’s a lot of traffic, you said it yourself. To cross the road safely,
you have to cross at a signal at a crosswalk and you will have to use the pedestrian route designated.
C: NNG: All I’m saying is the more the drivers know ahead of time because I go as a driver and a walker,
they better they can plan, and go a different way so they won’t be in such a rush. They will be going at
a decent pace so they won’t be rushing past the pedestrians, because they won’t have gotten caught by
something they didn’t expect like a steam roller going slowly with a police officer walking in front of it.
3
Here the audience member interrupted Mr. Emerick.
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A: TE: And that’s the purpose of the meetings we’ve been holding, and the website, and the variable
message signs we talked about earlier.
C: NNG: And sometimes the roads are clear and sometimes they aren’t. There are mornings when I leave
the house and one way is going great and the other is all backed up.
A: TE: And that’s no different from today, right? We can’t plan ahead for the rainy day when everyone is
going slowly, but there will be a project website and variable message signs and those will be updated
regularly.
Q: Councilor Kate Toomey (KT): There are some distinct locations that cause traffic in the morning between
people trying to get to the hospital and the various times at which schools open. Could we redirect
traffic through the park to get to the technical high school? The rest of the day doesn’t seem anywhere
as bad as in the morning.
A: JB: That is something we can bring up, but it would have to go through the park committee.
C: KT: My point is that if it would alleviate some of the traffic, then it might be a good idea.
A: MB: More broadly it seems like you might want to think about coordinating the starting times for schools
regionally. It seems that contributes to a lot of the congestion we’ve heard about during this process.
Maybe that’s something you could look at during construction, but there’s not much we can do about the
schools.
C: KT: I can see your point, but they already have the bus contracts all set and believe me it’s an ongoing
issue.
Q: NNG: Are you planning to continue the traffic signs at Rodney Street and Stanton Street. Rodney Street
that goes to the school, because when traffic goes through that area past the pond, we don’t have a sign
that says “school” with an arrow and drivers need to see those signs. We had a big accident there
yesterday. As you look into this, those two streets must have big signs.
C: PP: It’s what I was saying before, as you come up Belmont Street, having some kind of connection so
people can traverse back and forth safely in a crosswalk area. It’s probably not part of your project, but
it’s an issue, but the entire street is being done and the funds are coming from the City of Worcester so
the issue should be addressed. We have a lot of people coming from side streets, Rodney, Stanton and
others and they are heavily used by residents and kids going to school. So it should be addressed
somehow.
A: MB: Yes, that is beyond the limits of work for our project. We can definitely take a look at it, but I would
guess that it is being addressed by the other Belmont Street project currently underway.
Q: NNG: On the Edwards Street intersection, is it my understanding that parking will be removed on
Belmont Street to allow for two lanes instead of just one? Won’t that aggravate the problem by creating
additional lanes?
A: RL: There are a few issues: to make a reasonable taper4 we are widening Belmont Street slightly and
extending that widening to just beyond the intersection with the I-290 ramp. We extend that taper to
give people more of an opportunity to merge before Edwards Street where it goes back to being a single
lane. We are proposing to remove some of the on-street parking for five or six spots there.
4
The term taper indicates the narrowing of a road from more lanes down to fewer. Depending on the expected
speed of traffic, more or less space must be provided for traffic to merge from the area of more lanes into the
area where there are fewer.
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Q: NNG: On the pedestrian pathway, what’s that little purple section on the side of Converse Street?
A: RL: To make this work, we’re going to use the area that’s currently a sidewalk for a travel lane so that’s
where we are shaving the sidewalk on the opposite corner back just a little bit to create enough room for
the walkway to connect to the temporary pedestrian bridge.
Q: NNG: Will there be a staging location somewhere on Belmont Street?
A: RL: Once the contractor gets on board, he has to figure out how he would stage the project. He’d have
some space at the end of the ramp and on the “in-field” around the on-ramp, but in all likelihood, the
contractor will have to procure some nearby location.
Q: NNG: We’ve had some issues regarding staging with other projects. Can we know by the next meeting
where the staging area will be?
A: MB: That would be part of the bidding process. The contractor has to tell us where his staging area
would be during that part of the job. We won’t know until later on.
A: TE: We don’t provide staging areas for the contractor. The contractor has to find their own staging area.
He has the available work space, the yellow area here and part of the ramp system, but that’s the only
area he has for staging on-site. If he needs to store equipment beyond what’s here, he needs to work
something out with a property owner or rent space.
C: Senator Hariette Chandler (HC): We’ve had a lot of problems with a contractor who has been leaving
things on Shrewsbury Street. I would hope that you would oversee the staging area so it doesn’t
become a mess and a problem.
A: TE: As it states in our contract, the contractor will not be allowed to leave anything on the construction
area that is not protected adequately or is an obstruction to traffic.
Q: HC: Or dirt that just flies around all over the place?
A: TE: Right, anything like that needs to be protected. We’ll have a resident engineer who will be on site
every day and he’ll make sure those regulations are followed.
Q: HC: I had another question which is I use that roadway every day and if I knew in advance that this
would be a problem every day, and this young lady said you never know what things will be like from
day to day, they use electronic signs now which tell you not to go this way because there’s a problem.
Could you use that on either side of Belmont Street so that we have some understanding?
A: TE: We will have those message boards. They will be on I-290 and on Belmont Street
C: NNG: But that’s way far away, we’re right here.
C: HC: You don’t want them too far away.
A: TE: The signs need to be far enough in advance of the project to give people an opportunity to read the message and process the information. The contractor will be responsible for putting those out with the guidance of District 3. Once this staging is in place, the traffic pattern doesn’t really change through
construction. We can’t interrupt traffic here during the day. Any kind of interruption is really going to
have to happen at night when we have the least impact to traffic and those sorts of things would be
posted to the website.
C: HC: But the website isn’t good enough for people who are driving.
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A: TE: And that’s why it’s a website and the message boards also saying things like “this week we’re going
to set beams so anticipate lane closures at night.”
C: HC: There should be a message board as you enter from Lincoln Square and a message board
positioned as you enter going westbound coming down the hill to give people enough opportunity to
turn off and get on another route because once you get too close there’s nothing you can do.
A: NNG: Yes there is, you could take Catherine Street, you could go around by City View School, there are
ways.
A: MB: But you know those ways because you live here. Someone who doesn’t know the area won’t be
able to avoid the construction unless they get the information early on.
C: HC: And they could take Shrewsbury Street, that’s an alternative.
A: TE: And the message boards will say that. Another thing that will happen is a lot of people who will be
out here are people who use this road every day; they’re familiar with the city. They know their way
around and they will avoid this.
C: NNG: I know my way around, but traffic is different every day. Sometimes I’m better off going all the
way to Plantation Street.
A: TE: But we can’t tell you which route to take because we don’t know what traffic conditions will be each
day.
C: NNG: But you know what you’ll be doing each day. You know when you’ll be blocking the street
A: TE: But we’re not going to be blocking the street.
C: NNG: There was just an incident of blocking the street this morning, with the steam roller and the police
officer blocking the street.
A: TE: That’s another project and there will be no obstruction of the street during the day. There shouldn’t
be any steam rollers moving around on this project during the day. Any paving work would be done off
hours.
Q: HC: Do we have your commitment that there will be message boards and that they will be kept up on a
regular basis?
A: TE: Yes and we understand that this is critical. We are trying to get as much information as we can out
to the public because you will share this with everyone you know. The more information we get out
there, the smoother the project will go and the easier it will be on all of you.
C: HC: And we appreciate that very much.
C: NNG: It would be nice if you took the time to sit in a chair and observe the traffic and safety issues. We
have pedestrians, people using electric wheelchairs using the crosswalks at the top of the ramp. We
have a lot of cars coming off the exit, but a lot of people also use this area as pedestrians as well. If you
sit and observe, you may be able to see where you could add further signs to help direct everyone.
A: TE: Our goal is to make this all as safe as it can possibly be. We decided that the safest thing would be
to get pedestrians away from the construction and the vehicles. We decided to keep the signals active,
while under construction that’s really just for pedestrians. All of the pedestrian pathways during and
after construction are going to be fully ADA-accessible. We will continue to take note of what the public
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says and observe the work-site during construction so that if we need to make some changes and get
some additional signage then we can do it.
C: NNG: I’ll just make the comment that I was at the 25% design public hearing and this is a vast
improvement over what you had then. You’ve done a great job.
A: MB: That was the goal. The 25% hearing exists to gather your concerns. We took them, went back to
the drawing board and made these adjustments based on them.
C: PP: We’re certainly appreciative of the adjustments that have been made since the hearing at the
Technical High School. It might have gotten a little testy then, but nothing that we couldn’t handle and
the councilors and state delegation engaging in some sensible discussion after the fact has brought us to
this point, certainly let’s make no mistake about it: there is no silver bullet and this will be a tough
project. I think in the end, the important issue, the length of the project is going to be a concern and the
best approach is to shorten it. I understand working in the evening to minimize traffic impacts but
perhaps working in the day as a means to shorten the project would be ideal. Shortening the project’s
timeframe by working more hours certainly might alleviate some of the issues we have been having.
A: MB: We said from the beginning that this wouldn’t be an easy job.
C: PP: No, no, certainly, the senator and the representative and I have been around long enough to know
this won’t be like the Red Sea parting. You’ve been very up front about that.
A: MB: By the time we got to the 25% design public hearing, we had already done some traffic analysis
and analysis of construction techniques and we tried to come up with a solution that minimized the pain
for everyone. We think this is it.
Q: HC: I assume you have already done a traffic analysis, looking at the patterns?
A: MB: We have.
C: HC: Then I just hope you would stay away from heavy traffic times so you don’t have a problem with
people trying to use the road heavily. We want this to be done as quickly as possible to minimize the
pain involved.
Q: JOD: You mentioned that we will not be able to make a left onto I-290. Will there be signage? What
about people who decide to make their own detours; drivers going through residential areas on
unplanned routes and going too fast creating safety issues for the neighborhoods; how will all that be
addressed?
A: RL: There will definitely be some growing pains at the beginning of this project which is where police
details, signage, the project website, contacts with the resident engineer and tweaking alternate routes
and having the flexibility to address unforeseen problems all come into the picture. People find their
best route around a construction project, but I imagine that there will be some growing pains at the start
of the project.
Q: HC: Can you speak to detours, road closures and your approach to wayfinding, particular with an eye
towards making sure that local business does not suffer during the construction?
A: RL: The only real road restriction is the left turn onto I-290. There may be some nighttime impacts when
we set beams for the new bridge. There will also be some limited, short-term impacts when the roadway
and sidewalks need to be repaved and there could also be some impacts when the temporary pedestrian
bridge is installed and removed, but there’s no intent to close any roads permanently.
Q: HC: Oak Avenue is not impacted?
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A: RL: No, there’s no change to Oak Avenue.
Q: NNG: Hi, I’m from Plumley Village and I’m worried that this project is going to increase traffic on the
side roads around Belmont Street. One street that’s heavy now, is the Laurel Street/Summer Street
intersection in Plumley Village. It’s almost a detour now for folks and that will increase greatly. As it is
now, there’s no sign or light there, so is that something that’s considered for this project? It’s Laurel
Street and Summer Street. There’s a lot of traffic coming into Summer Street from Belmont Street,
crossing over Edward Street onto Laurel Street and it’s only two lanes and so that intersection that goes
into School Street that’s very heavy especially at peak hours. As it is there’s a lot of traffic and that will
increase and it might require a light there.
A: RL: We can take a look at that location with the City and DOT to see what knowledge they have of it.
C: PP: We have Joe Borbone who can address that right here.
A: JB: I think there will be a number of locations that pop up especially during the first 90 days of
construction where locals and out-of-towners both start using side streets. They will get lost and cause
confusions, but I think there are some locations, like the intersection mentioned where the City and DOT
can look and consider how they can be made safer. We may not be able to eliminate the additional
traffic, but we can make it safer for drivers and pedestrians.
C: NNG: Maybe a light for the pedestrian crosswalk would be appropriate.
Q: HC: Will you give us reports as you go along?
A: MB: During major construction?
C: HC: Yes.
A: MB: Yes, that’s the idea.
Q: HC: But that’s still in the future right now?
A: MB: What we’re showing you here tonight is the 75% design. We are working on technical issues now
and addressing community concerns. At the end of the summer we will have the design complete and
advertise the project. Once that’s complete, it will take a few months for the bids to come in.
C: PP: What I would suggest is once the project starts, I’m sure that our community meetings will have a
few more people at them because of the various changes that will take place. If we could have a
periodic visit from a representative of DOT at Plumley Village or the Shrewsbury Street Association or
other groups impacted by this project, that would be helpful and if there are hot spots in the area, it
would be good for the community to have a firsthand connection to the project so they can know that
adjustments will be made. Even if it were only an hour a month, the help would be immeasurable. We
don’t know how the traffic will go, but if you could be there it would help to ensure that issues would be
resolved.
A: TE: Yes, we did something similar with the Route 146 project and Quinsigamond Village.
C: PP: We have a number of community groups that are very active and I think being part of that would be
helpful as well.
C: MB: All right, as there are no more questions, I will say thank you for coming. Have a safe trip home.
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Next Steps
The public involvement process associated with the design phase is now complete. It is anticipated that
some sort of outreach effort will take place concurrent with the construction phase of the project. The initial
outreach for the construction period will likely be the preconstruction meeting held at the District 3 offices on
Belmont Street. The project website, www.mass.gov/massdot/belmontstbridge will also remain operational
from design into construction.
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Appendix 1: Meeting Attendees
First Name
Last Name
Affiliation
John
[illegible]
Resident
Tamia
Barriga
UMass Transit Center
Walter
Birger
Worcester Magazine
Michael
Bloukos
MassDOT
Joe
Borbone
City of Worcester
Stephanie
Boundy
MassDOT
Nathaniel
Cabral-Curtis
Howard/Stein-Hudson
Marc
Champa
67 Belmont Street
Hariette
Chandler
Senator
Linda
DaCostino
UMass Memorial Hospital
Lucelia
DeJesus
Resident
Gio
Dellostritto
UMass Memorial Hospital
Moses
Dixon
Office of Senator Keefe
Zach
Dyer
Worcester Department of Public Health
Fran
Early
UMass Memorial Hospital
Thomas
Emerick
MassDOT
Jenn
Falco
Resident
Joe
Frawley
MassDOT
Laurie
Griggs
UMass Memorial Hospital
Kellie
LaFlash
Resident
Lang
Ly
Resident
Hillary
MacKenzie
Worcester Magazine
Bill
Moisuk
Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Council
Jim
O’Day
State Representative
Katie
O’Dell
UMass Memorial Hospital
Phillip
Palmieri
City Councilor
Gerald
Powers
Walk Bike Worcester
Jackie
Reis
Worcester Telegram and Gazette
Paul
Reith
67 Belmont Street
Ana
Rodriguez
UMass Memorial Hospital
Mario
Russo
MassDOT
Joe
Sacco
Resident
Kate
Toomey
City Councilor
Karin
Valentin-Goins
Walk Bike Worcester
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