Beaver Street Reconstruction to Lead into Streetscape Project
By Robin Vinci at April 12, 2024 | 9:15 pm | Print
Those coming from Farmington Ave. and heading into Broad St. and eventually into Main St. will soon have a new road to guide the way.
Construction on Beaver St. has begun that will make it the main throughway to the new Downtown Streetscape area.
According to Mark Moriarty, public works director, the project will call for Washington St. to no longer merge with Beaver St. onto Farmington Ave. Those coming from Washington St. will soon be forced to make a stop and turn left onto Farmington Ave. or right onto Beaver St.
“This is incredibly important to every other thing that we are doing with the streetscape,” said Moriarty. “There are a couple areas of traffic flows into downtown that are weird and disjointed. Beaver St. is one of them.”
Moriarty said Washington St. is more like a residential street leaving no logical flow to Broad St. and the downtown area.
“Beaver St. will bring you to Broad St. and flow nicely into Main St.,” said Moriarty. “Beaver St. is also in awful condition, but we will change that as well as how you access downtown and improve how you access downtown. It’s not too dissimilar to the Hart St. Extension Project.”
Previously, it was difficult to get from Arch St. to South Main St. until the Hart St, Extension was complete.
“That was a transportation link that really needed to happen and it improved the traffic flow in that area of the City as well as the traffic flow to the park and the hospital,” Moriarty said. “This project is very similar in a way because presently there is a break in how traffic flow works north of Broad St.”
Once Beaver St. is done, it will blend Farmington into the Main St.
“We are working towards improving the downtown,” said Moriarty. “We will also get money for the next phase of Broad St. happening pretty soon.”
Washington St. will have a short road extended from it as well called the Washington St. Extension. (see schematic)
“This is the first major project that we ever designed in house,” said Moriarty. “We saved the City about $325,000 to hire someone to do that. Because we did it in-house and we are getting a grant that pays for the project it will also reimburse us for the cost of the design.”
