I-93/95 Interchange plans totally suspended
Published on September 25th, 2002
STONEHAM, MA - Only a day after a miserable reception by Reading residents for the new I93-95 interchange plan, MassHighway has pulled the plug on the controversial feasibility study.
According to Sen. Richard Tisei, he witnessed the contentious air of the meeting and the questions left unanswered by MassHighway, and scheduled a meeting on Tuesday afternoon with Highway Commissioner John Cogliano. Tisei expressed his doubts about the ongoing feasibility study, and MassHighway agreed to go back to the drawing board.
MassHighway will work with the towns of Woburn, Reading and Stoneham to create local task forces comprised of citizens, legislators, community representatives and local and state officials, and will then attempt to design a reasonable plan.
“MassHighway decided to suspend the feasibility study after their presentation on Monday night wasn’t very impressive,” said Tisei. “There were a lot of questions asked that were left unanswered, and there’s been a lot of criticism that planning moved too quickly and was without a strong local component. Many of the people most strongly affected felt like they didn’t have a say in the process.”
MassHighway announced the suspension of the study in a press release.
“I am suspending the feasibility study in order to create a task force which will have a two-fold purpose,” said Cogliano. “It will look at near-term solutions to improve safety and traffic flow within the existing right-of-way, and also examine long-term regional transportation issues in the interchange area.”
The suspension also coincided with an announcement that the Thursday night presentation at Stoneham High School has been cancelled.
“I think there was a very thick air of contention with a lot of yelling and loud protesting at the meeting in Reading,” said Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Tony Kennedy. “My sense of this decision is that the people essentially returned the study to MassHighway, and said do it right next time.”
The temperature in the auditorium was a little cooler than the last time MassHighway came to town, but tempers were no less hot once the new Interchange plans were revealed.
Back in July, representatives from the Massachusetts Highway Department (Mass-Highway) held a public hearing on a hot night to reveal plans that would take close to 80 homes in Reading, nearly 100 in the overall area, to make room for what it called improvements to the Route 93-95/128 Interchange.
Those plans were met with great criticism, both spoken and written, and MassHighway staff members were sent back to the drawing board to come up with better options for the area.
Those new plans, in the form of two new alternatives (listed as Alternative 4 and Alter-native 5) were unveiled at a hearing held last night in the auditorium at RMHS before roughly 700 interested residents.
Judging by the local reaction, MassHighway staff may have to schedule a few more hours in the drawing rooms.
The new options call for a three level design, with ramps going over and under the actual Interstate highways. The two ramps would run under the highway, while another pair would rise 25 feet over the highway’s surface.
For comparative purposes, MassHighway Project Manager Stan Wood said that measurement would put the new ramps at slightly less in height than the new Commerce Way Interchange ramps in Woburn.
The footprint for both designs has also been significantly reduced, and MassHighway Chief Engineer Thomas Broderick stated that no more than 23 properties, both residential and business, would be taken, total, in all the communities if Alternative 4 if chosen, while only 11 or 12 properties total would be taken if Alternative 5 is taken. Those numbers are down from the 77
Reading homes figure that has been discussed in the past, though MassHighway stated that number was never realistic, and that previous options included taking 35-40 homes.
“This is a significant decrease in the number of property takings needed to move the project forward,” said Broderick.
Both new alternatives feature ramps which are placed much closer to the actual body of the highway, thereby reducing the footprint. The main difference between alternative 4 and 5 is that alternative 5 requires an entire section of Interstate 95/Route 128 to be moved slightly south, thereby creating more encroachment into Woburn, but causing less property taking in Reading (see accompanying sketches of both options).
According to MassHighway’s Rod Emery, the plans discussed last night include
the following property takings:
Alternative 4
•One home at the end of George Street in Reading;
•A pocket of homes on Richard Lane in Woburn and Border Road in Reading;
•Two businesses (undisclosed) on Washington Street)
Alternative 5
•This project would result in less homes being taken in the Richard Lane
pocket, but more land would be taken in Woburn (no further details were given).
“Things are too up in the air at the moment to try and predict the takings,” said Emery.
The cost associated with each option is roughly $100 million for alternative 4, and $140 million for alternative 5.
MassHighway Acting Com-missioner John Cogliano opened the meeting by thanking residents and business owners for the large volume of responses his department has received since the July hearing in Reading, and stated that his department is committed to giving people an opportunity to speak out about the plans, and that his staff will incorporate those suggestions into plans.
Project Manager Wood gave a presentation on why MassHighway feels the project is necessary, citing the volume of traffic the Interchange supports (400,000) vehicles per day. He also cited Registry of Motor Vehicle reports that showed 678 accidents occurred at the site over a three-year period (1997-1999), though audience members pointed out that those numbers would put the total number of accidents at the Interchange at about 1 percent of the number of accidents in the state over a three year period.
He also pointed out that the new ramps would support a speed of 50 mph when exiting the highway, but that speeds would be posted at 40-45 mph.
During the audience participation portion of the meeting, several residents asked why the feasibility study was taking place before the Route 3 or Big Dig projects were completed, because they will likely have an effect on traffic in the area. Broderick stated that the plans were created using information from the 2025 Regional Transportation Plan developed by the Boston MPO, which anticipates the completion of these projects. The model area used extends from Rhode Island to New Hampshire and includes almost everything east of I-495.
Audience members were particularly upset at the slides used during the presentation, saying that the figures on them were tough to read from a distance. MassHighway officials apologized and plan to improve them for the next meeting.
These meetings will provide MassHighway with the opportunity to present modifications to the previously considered alternatives, based on public input received in prior sessions. They will also provide the public an opportunity to make additional suggestions, for further consideration, as development of the preferred alternative advances.
The overall study is being conducted to improve both safety and congestion issues associated with the current roadway system. These infrastructure alternatives also include proposals to improve the Mishawum Road/Wash-ington Street/I-95 and the Route 28/I-95 interchange as well as widening I-95 and I-93 through the study area.
The local legislative team, consisting of Rep. Brad Jones (R-North Reading), Rep. Carol Donovan (D-Woburn), and Sen. Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield), expressed displeasure with the presentation as well, saying that one given to them last week by MassHighway was much easier to understand, and showed how much progress had been made in reducing the size of the footprint for the project.
The tentative timeline for the project calls for completion of the feasibility study portion and preparing the Environmental Notification Form in late 2002 or early 2003, with the final environmental document and 25 percent design completed in late 2006, early 2007. MassHighway would anticipate completing the design by early 2010, with construction starting in the fall of that year, and completion of the project anticipated for 2013.
Reading Daily Times Chronicle Editor Paul Feely contributed the Reading portion of this article.
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