The city’s Traffic and Parking Commission approved making the bus and bike lane on Broadway permanent.
The request was initially made by former City Manager Thomas Ambrosino in a letter dated Sept. 28, 2022.
“The goal is to make permanent the bus and bike lane that operates downtown currently between Fay Square and Third Street/Everett Avenue,” said Alex Train, the city’s Housing and Community Development Director. “Currently, the bus lane operates to serve the Route 111, Route 112, and other local bus routes. A study that the city commissioned did demonstrate that it had no adverse impact on traffic and it did improve safety in the downtown.”
As a result of that study, Train said the city administration recommended that the bus and bike lane be made permanent, as well as be integrated into the redesign of the infrastructure downtown.
The City Council typically has the final sign off on recommendations approved by the Traffic and Parking Commission.
In other business, the commission approved a plan to add a second vehicular peak a.m. lane on Everett Avenue southbound.
“Due to rush hour traffic, at times it is difficult for drivers to access the Rte. 1 onramp going into town,” said Train. “We would propose adding a restricted lane that would only operate between 5 a..m. and 10 a.m. Monday through Friday.”
After 10 a.m., drivers would be able to use the metered parking spaces along the southbound side of Everett Avenue.
“We did have our transportation consultant examine this just to determine whether there would be any adverse impacts, and they concluded that there wouldn’t be any negative impacts if it was done,” said Train.
The commission also agreed to have the traffic consultant look into the feasibility of a request made by a resident to make Clark Avenue one way between Stockton Street and Webster Avenue.
“Due to the fact that this involves the direction of the street and traffic circulation, we would want to table this in order to examine the operational and safety impact a change might have,” said Train. “The resident that petitioned the commission did cite a number of reasons for the request, so we would propose relaying this to our transportation engineer just to look into it to make sure it was viable and wouldn’t have any negative impacts.”