WHATELY — A $165,098 grant the town has received through the state’s Complete Streets Funding Program will be used on the construction of a shared-use path, a lane reduction and sidewalk repairs.
Town Administrator Brian Domina said the funding will help the town ensure the safety of residents while also increasing accessibility.
“Pedestrian and cyclist safety, especially at the elementary school, is really important,” Domina said.
Whately Elementary School will have a multi-use path installed next to its driveway to keep children out of the road when arriving at school.
“The existing sidewalk doesn’t go all the way to Long Plain Road,” Domina explained. “We want to get kids who walk and bike to school off the driveway.”
Additionally, a “road diet,” a technique of slowing traffic by narrowing a roadway’s width, will be implemented on Conway Road from the upper reservoir to Webber Road. Domina said narrowing the lanes could help reduce drivers’ speed because people who “perceive a straight, wide-open highway” drive faster.
The sidewalk from Town Hall to the Whately Congregational Church on the east side of Chestnut Plain Road will also be the focus of a reconstruction effort.
“Finishing up sidewalks is really important to us,” Domina explained. “They get a lot of use. We’re really happy we can finish that.”
Whately received a previous Complete Streets Funding Program grant in February 2019 for $209,585 to construct sidewalks along Chestnut Plain Road. Domina said there is a cap of $400,000 over a three-year period, which limited how much money the town could receive through this most recent round of funding.
He said the town must carefully pick and choose which projects it wants to pursue.
“We were looking at small projects to maximize the amount of dollars,” Domina said. “We had to plug and play to get the amount we need.”
The Complete Streets Funding Program was launched in 2016 and has worked with 235 municipalities in the state to create Complete Streets Policies, according to the state Department of Transportation. A Complete Streets Policy is an overarching plan that includes the town’s vision and intent, a commitment to making roads accessible to all kinds of travelers and an implementation plan.
A “complete street” is one that enables safe travel for people of all ages and abilities, regardless of their mode of transportation, including pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit users, according to MassDOT.
Domina said the next step is for Whately to hire an engineer to actually design the plans now that the town has received funding, but that is an additional obstacle the town must get past.
“The Complete Streets program does not pay for design work,” he noted. “It’s one of the challenges of the program.”