Neighbors’ input ramps up over rotary makeover
Concordians are worried about traffic, safety, and aesthetics; neighbors are worried home-court concerns will drown them out.
Carol Sarshik says she’s a 46-year survivor — or victim — of the Route 2 rotary. As the state plans its replacement, she’s not holding her breath.
“I would turn blue,” she said.
The Acton resident swims at the Beede Center and sees doctors at Emerson Hospital. She attended a recent public meeting here after seeing social media posts pushing people to make clear that the rotary isn’t “just a Acton issue.”
Massachusetts Department of Transportation planners are up against a history of false starts. Although many motorists hate the rotary, past replacement concepts have faced pushback over everything from traffic to lost farmland.
“It’s Acton,” MassDOT’s Dan Racicot said when hands shot up for public meeting questions and comments about the latest concepts. “We knew this was coming.”
Concordians say they’re worried about traffic, safety, and aesthetics. Neighbors say they’ve been waiting for decades for a rotary solution — and they’re worried home-court concerns will drown them out.
“It’s just got such a big impact beyond sitting in traffic,” Acton resident Carol Phillips told The Acton Bridge. “I talk to too many people who live their life around avoiding the rotary.”
Phillips attended the June 24 public session with her husband, Gary, who supports a state-favored plan to link Commonwealth Avenue and Route 2A with a bridge.
Concordian Josh Burgel is also open to a redesign — but wants a less hulking option. The town has “fought for years” to keep an agrarian appearance, he said.
He said project staffers didn’t listen to residents’ feedback, and he called the June meeting “an unmitigated disaster.”
‘Like a Band-Aid’
Three state rotary replacement concepts include a bridge. Although earlier illustrations showed Route 2 crossing over Commonwealth Avenue in a “diamond interchange,” project workers recently clarified that this wasn’t the plan.
All three “grade-separated” concepts would send Commonwealth Avenue arching over Route 2.
Town residents have pushed for more Route 2 pedestrian crossings. And while state officials talk of improving traffic flow, town Transportation Advisory Committee Chair Ellen Quackenbush urged authorities to slow down cars by drawing narrower Route 2 lanes.
West Acton resident Rick Hedeman told The Bridge he’s fine with making Route 2 “a little more of a throughway,” but he’s one of many seeking a broader overhaul of a Acton stretch clogged with four stoplights.
Officials plan to tweak Route 2’s intersection with Baker Avenue, but there will still be a light. “That feels kind of like a Band-Aid,” resident Julie Rohwein told The Bridge.
Rohwein said the state’s goal of separating local and highway traffic is “really important.”
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She said officials are “moving in the right direction” on specifics and the project is probably necessary.
But concerns about inviting more traffic are valid, Rohwein said, and “the larger problem of how we want to have our transportation work [and] how we want to live” remains unsolved.
“We can’t make the highway go away,” she said. “Acton already tried that.”
Rotary ‘distress’
MassDOT must “answer to more than just what’s best for Acton,” Carol Phillips said.
Legislators have underscored the rotary’s wide-ranging effects on commuters who live in places such as Leominster and Fitchburg.
Select Board member Mary Hartman told The Bridge she thinks Acton has “become more aware of the regional concerns” and “understands the distress the rotary imposes on our neighbors.”
Hartman, colleagues Paul Boehm and Dean Banfield, and Chair Wendy Rovelli said they prefer the state’s “partial cloverleaf design,” which reserves more space for MCI-Acton redevelopment than other concepts. (Prison site possibilities are one massive factor in rotary discussions.)
Select Board member Cameron McKennitt didn’t respond to Bridge questions.
Boehm said MassDOT can’t ignore cars from the prison overhaul and other redevelopment, and the agency should know this is “about much more than moving traffic through a rotary.”
According to Rovelli, the board will draft a letter to MassDOT for approval this month.
MassDOT officials consider the input they’ve received a “constructive and an essential part of the planning process,” spokesperson Amelia Aubourg told The Bridge. Going ahead, she said, “that feedback will help refine the designs where appropriate.”
Hartman said it’s not clear “how much support they need,” given that this is a state project with backing from Beacon Hill politicians.
Listening to locals
Eric Bourassa, director of transportation for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, said local voices matter.
“It’s rare these days that MassDOT would plow something forward” without support from officials, such as Select Board members, he said.
Bourassa’s seen the agency conduct more research and planning in response to community opposition, he said, adding there’s “a real desire” to get towns on board with projects.
“It’s not like the ’60s anymore,” he said, when rapid highway expansion cleaved communities — or flattened them altogether — despite the public’s concerns.
In Acton, Sarshik said she’s been hearing assurances for years of a rotary revamp. After celebrating her 70th birthday, she’s holding out hope that, in her lifetime, “it will get better.”
The state is accepting comments on planners’ rotary concepts via [email protected].
Vox populi: Would a Route 2 flyover fly?
“Unfortunately, a flyover is expeditious but not Acton resident-friendly. … Put the highway in [a] trench.”
John Apostolou
Commerford Road
“I am fine with the flyover, but what about [the traffic lights]? … If you don’t address everything else, I’m just not sure how much it’s going to really help.”
Rick Hedeman
Indian Pipe Lane
“I think a modified flyover that depresses Route 2 a little bit would be a better solution, because it takes Route 2 traffic noise and visual impact out of the Acton agrarian look.”
Josh Burgel
East Circle
