An opening phase of a five-year project is underway in Springfield, Massachusetts. It’s an overhaul of one of the city’s busiest – and most dangerous – intersections.
It’s not quite Carmageddon, but no one’s drive through the city's Forest Park neighborhood will be getting any faster anytime soon.
MassDOT dubbed Monday, July 7, 2025, as the start of a new phase for the X Intersection project - one involving major water pipe replacement, excavation and asphalt work on and around Sumner Avenue.
As MassDOT engineer Todd Moylan said at a May public info session, residents have already had a taste of what’s to come as preliminary and site prep work got underway.
“As many of you know, if you live here or you commute through here, the project's been underway for a couple of months,” he said. “Our current completion date is October 23, 2030, so it's a long duration project that'll be taking place over the next six construction seasons.”
A typical construction season is March to December, he adds.
This year crews will focus on drainage-related work, with a lot of underground utility upgrades and relocations happening along the way. It means more roadways narrowing from two to one lane and heavy equipment rolling in and out of the area, a now familiar sight in the neighborhood.
The work is part of the broader, $27.5 million X Intersection revamp that’s been under development for the past decade.
Mayor Domenic Sarno tells WAMC construction couldn’t come soon enough for a neighborhood that’s transformed into a major artery.
“The X area in Forest Park is an historic area and … has always been known as a place of commerce and business,” he said after a groundbreaking to mark the project’s start. “Things have changed now! When the X came about, you had pedestrian traffic, not as much car traffic. This has become … a major thoroughfare, not only for the city of Springfield, but for the bedroom communities around the city of Springfield that people traverse up and down.”
It’s also a spot infamous for traffic jams as well as serious pedestrian crashes and car accidents. MassDOT ranks the intersection of Sumner and Belmont avenues and Dickinson Street as one of the state’s top “Crash Clusters.”
According to DPW Director Chris Cignoli, as many as 30,000 cars pass through the intersection daily – among them drivers from Springfield, Longmeadow, East Longmeadow and further east, like Hampden and Wilbraham.
With left-turn restrictions, multiple old traffic lights and one-way side streets limiting options in the area, Cignoli surmises drivers looking to dodge jams end up causing a significant share of crashes.
“Most of the accidents are sideswipes and people in one lane, getting stuck behind somebody - that's going to go away, because the main locations are all going to have their own turning lanes,” he tells WAMC. “The pedestrian improvements are going to be absolutely fantastic. Every location where people cross now that they're not supposed to be [crossing at] will have locations for them to cross. Pedestrians getting across Sumner Avenue or any of the other side streets is going to be greatly enhanced and bicycle accommodations up and down the corridor for people who are biking to and from Forest Park or other places in the city.”
Per MassDOT, drivers can expect crews to be at work between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Construction will occur on stretches of all three major roads involved, plus side streets. The largest segment spans 3,400 feet of Sumner Avenue, from Churchill to Daytona Street.
When all is said and done, officials hope to have new traffic signal systems in place, complete with traffic pattern changes and transition lanes, plus new street lighting and landscaping.
There will also be five-foot bike lanes, sidewalk reconstruction and multiple bus stop and shelter upgrades. It’s going to be a while before motorists see them, though – landscaping, sidewalk and site improvements aren’t slated to start in the summer of 2029.
Ongoing project updates can be found on the MassDOT website.
