Picture Main Street is a zombie design that Northampton’s city government pursues regardless of rising costs and widespread public opposition. Unresolved issues include traffic flow through downtown, loss of shade trees, impacts on locally owned downtown businesses, hazards to pedestrians crossing the “bike lanes” (especially anyone with a mobility impairment), and impacts of three-plus years of construction and disruption.
The bike lane fantasy originated in the city’s design RFP of July 3, 2018 which specified: “We want to accommodate bicycles the entire length of the project, in separated cycle tracks/buffered bicycle lanes when possible.” Since then the city has never held a public hearing on the project with a legal transcript to record comments made, claiming it to be a state project. MassDOT held a virtual hearing on April 26, 2023 but there is no indication that input from opponents had any influence on the design. This top-down — “We experts know what’s good for you” — approach was the basis of 1950s urban renewal, as famously rejected by Jane Jacobs (quoted in Claudia Lefko’s July 21 column) among many other critics. Successful city planning today involves community input and initiative from start to finish — what I have called “Humane Urbanism.”
Of particular concern is the “Resilience Hub” fiasco in which the city paid a local real estate investor twice the appraised fair market value for the long-abandoned Old Baptist Church at the heart of the Picture Main Street project area. This “Hulk on the Hill” stands grimly behind a chain link fence ever since the city bought it on June 8, 2023. This was the same city administration that aims to tear up Main Street over multiple years — a very disturbing prospect indeed.
Rutherford H. Platt
Florence