AMHERST — For a few hours each day this week, a section of East Pleasant Street near the entrance to Village Park Apartments has become a one-way street, as work commences on a project to enhance pedestrian access and public transportation.
Department of Public Works Superintendent Guilford Mooring said March 29 that Palmer Paving is handling the widening of the road and installing new drainage.
“It’s not a simple thing,” Mooring said of the excavation, which has been occurring mostly on the western side of the road and on the edge of the University of Massachusetts campus.
The $190,000 project, being paid for using a Housing Choice Initiative capital grant from the state, will include new dedicated bus pull offs, with shelters and bike racks, on both sides of the road, with a 5-foot wide sidewalk extended for 360 feet along the east side of East Pleasant Street between Village Park and Olympia Drive.
This new accessible sidewalk will replace an existing foot path and connect to the bus stops, as well as to the downtown sidewalk system. Palmer Paving’s work will also feature two new road crossings, both with accessible curb cuts and crosswalks.
Meantime, Mooring said Palmer Paving has also been hired to finish up paving work left incomplete from the 2018 season.
That includes resurfacing a section of East Pleasant Street from Strong Street to Eastman Lane, and a portion of Main Street from Town Hall to Dickinson Street.
Work is also beginning on West Bay Road where new sidewalks and crosswalks will improve pedestrian access between Applewood Apartments and the Hampshire College campus.
With spring arriving, installation of a multi use path on East Hadley Road has resumed, with Taylor Davis Landscape Company removing the existing sidewalk and replacing it with the 6- to 8-foot wide path, and also replacing the bus stops.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.