Traffic safety issues, such as improvements to the Blakeley and McGrath intersection, were discussed during a recent meeting on this and other matters. — Photo by Bobbie Toner

By Gina Ingrando

This week a Zoom meeting discussing the construction of McGrath Highway (Route 28) at Mystic Avenue (Route 38) was held. This meeting covered two specific topics that Project Manager David Shedd announced at the beginning. The main topics of discussion were Targeted Safety Improvement Projects and a Federally Funded TIP Project.

This project had previously been presented to the public in December of 2020. Since then, “various parts of the project have been removed and fast tracked to construction using state funding to address safety issues in the project area,” according to Shedd.

Doing so has allowed improvements to the project while still staying within the allotted federal amount that had previously been budgeted. Advertisements for this project have been posted in The Somerville Times, the Boston Globe, the Somerville Journal, and the MassDOT website. A tragic crash with a pedestrian caused more urgency in this project for the safety of pedestrians and cyclists.

Under the topic of Targeted Safety Improvement Projects, the first was the Blakeley and McGrath intersection. Before improvements to this area were made, there were no pedestrian accommodations, specifically no crosswalk to get across McGrath Highway. The improvements made allowed a crosswalk and signal to be installed for crossing McGrath. This project took about four months to complete.

The next area of focus for Improvement Projects was Kensington Crossing. One of the main hopes for this project was to reduce the speed of vehicles to reduce the likelihood of a pedestrian crash. The main feature to accommodate reducing speeds was adding raised crosswalks for pedestrians. Three raised crosswalks have been put in place to help reduce the pedestrian crashes in this area and there are still more improvements being made. This project started in August 2021 and will continue through the fall of 2022.

The third area of focus in this project was to evaluate the pedestrian infrastructure. This included looking at pedestrian crossings, curb ramps, sidewalks, and signal timings. The recommendations being looked at were adding ADA compliant curb ramps and adding sidewalks where paths are. They are also looking to add flashing beacons to improve the visibility of a pedestrian crossing. This first part of this project started in October 2021 and finished in December 2021. The second half of construction has started and will continue and be finished in the fall of 2022.

Tim McIntosh then took over the meeting to discuss details about the TIP Project and the next steps moving forward for this construction. He discussed how lane narrowing or elimination can produce improvements. These improvements include shorter roadway crossing distances, reduced vehicle speeds, and providing space for curb extensions to be installed or to have larger sidewalks. The anticipated timeline to have these improvements made will start this Summer and continue through the fall of 2023.