HADLEY — Fed up with the way police officers were directing traffic through the ongoing Route 9 construction project, a motorist recently took out her frustrations by yelling at the detail officers, before bringing her complaints to the Hadley Police Department.
Police Lt. Mitchell Kuc told the Select Board Wednesday that the driver told him she was concerned that officers were not directing traffic fairly, allowing drivers heading in one direction on the state highway to go more frequently than those in the other direction.
But Kuc said what she experienced was bottlenecks in several sections of the road, where multiple work crews were blocking lanes of traffic at the same time, leaving officers unable, at times, to move the traffic.
“Its frustrating for everybody,” Kuc said. “It’s frustrating for all of us.”
Kuc added that the department is doing the best it can, but there was an unfortunate confluence of road work on May 11 and May 12 that included the ongoing Route 9 project, milling and paving a stretch of Rocky Hill Road, which has long been used as way to avoid Route 9, and milling and paving Bay Road, another road being used to get off the state highway. Along with work happening on South Maple Street, that meant three main routes through town between Amherst and Northampton were affected.
Both Kuc and DPW Director Scott McCarthy explained that this is the first year of the four-year, $27 million project on Route 9.
“We understand that the construction impacts several thousand people each morning,” Kuc said.
Still, Kuc said the goals are always to keep traffic flowing, get the workers out on the job home safely each day and make it easy for construction equipment to access areas of the project.
“We do what we need to do to keep it moving,” Kuc said.
There has also been a dismay for people who live on Bay Road and Rocky Hill Road due to the increasing volume of traffic.
“A lot of motorists are finding their way around Route 9 and alternate routes to their destination,” Kuc said.
The town paving work, McCarthy said, was solicited in the new year, when he began making calls and putting a plan together. “I guess timing kind of stunk, but my hands are tied with it,” McCarthy said.
“I apologize to any residents hung up in traffic, but it is what it is,” McCarthy said. “We have to maintain side roads. They are getting beat up pretty bad with people going around.”
He also explained that the work is finished for the season on the town side. “The town’s paving is complete,” McCarthy said. Kuc said a contractor on Rocky Hill Road had to be reminded that it would not be appropriate to close Rocky Hill Road. Kuc said work has to be done within the constraints set by Hadley.
Select Board member Jane Nevinsmith said she appreciated that resurfacing was done on rough roads, noting that if town streets are not kept up, people will complain about their condition.
Hadley needs to get information out to people who are using the roads about when main arteries are being clogged as they were for two days, said Select Board member Joyce Chunglo.
“I think it’s just communication,” Chunglo said about what needs to be done.
Though board member Randy Izer said he wasn’t sure that would be effective because many travel the roads daily.
“The majority of people you’re dealing with are not Hadley residents anyhow,” Izer said. “If they don’t know what’s going on by now, there’s no helping them.”
