On top of the usual hum of traffic, buzzsaws and excavators have been working at full-speed on Wilbraham Road for the past few weeks - installing the latest batch of safer pedestrian crossings in the city of homes.
That includes enhanced sidewalks as well as a pedestrian island in an area where vehicles often turn quickly off of the even busier State Street.
According to Mayor Domenic Sarno, by the time the work gets done, Springfield could see up to 30 improved pedestrian crossings - many in places where the city's neighborhood councils requested safer conditions for residents in the city of over 150,000.
"This was listening to the neighborhood councils and what the neighborhood wanted and we continue to do that,” the mayor said Monday. “Overall, $12 million dollars in this NERF plan."
The money for NERF – the Neighborhood Economic Recovery Fund – is coming from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Neighborhood councils and residents made the funding requests, according to the city’s Director of Disaster Recovery and Compliance, Tina Quagliato Sullivan.
“What we'll see along this corridor is sidewalk upgrades, tree planting, tree trimming, new signage for pedestrian safety, and then we'll also see two new intersections installed,” she said.
Springfield Department of Public Works Director Chris Cignoli says historically, corridors like Wilbraham Road and State Street were designed with “progression” in mind – essentially, getting cars to move through the area as quickly possible.
Avoiding traffic congestion was a key part of the whole corridor’s design 10 to 15 years ago.
Now, Cignoli says, the focus is on protecting pedestrians and cyclists.
“So, now you're taking that design, flipping it on its head, and saying, ‘Alright, bicyclists, pedestrians - they have the right of way, how do you, then, start changing the road?’ And just by putting two lines in to go across the street is not the way to do it,” Cignoli explained.
As both Cignoli and Sarno pointed out, one of the best examples of the crosswalk enhancements the city aims for is right down the street, at American International College.
Bright overhead lights, a bump-out that extends the curb into Wilbraham Road, and ample signage boosts pedestrian crossing visibility in an area that sees plenty of foot traffic in the form of AIC students, residents and children.
Cignoli says more improvements are coming via the DPW’s “Safe Streets and Roads for All” plan, which has received a $15 million federal grant.
When awarding the funds, the U.S. Department of Transportation laid out how the project would “implement system safety countermeasures” at some 15 intersections and in 10 corridors across the city – all of which have a quote “disproportionately high number of fatal and serious injury crashes.”
The DOT said large swathes of Carew Street, Page Boulevard, and Sumner Avenue, as other areas, would be part of the undertaking.
Cignoli says a number of the Safe Streets projects will be underway during the construction season.
