You Can Blame Fossil Fuels for Delaying Northampton’s Main Street Renovation
A long-awaited project to widen sidewalks, improve public spaces, and install protected bike lanes along Main Street in downtown Northampton will have to wait one more year because Eversource, the local methane gas utility company, did not accurately record the locations of its underground pipes.
Northampton’s “Picture Main Street” renovation project aims to create considerably more space for businesses and foot traffic in the city’s busy downtown district.
The design would move the curbs to convert extra-wide driving lanes into more space for wider sidewalks, outdoor dining areas, new bus stops, and sidewalk-level bike lanes:
The $32 million project had previously been expected to get underway this summer, according to MassDOT’s project database.
In preparation for the project’s expected groundbreaking, Eversource had replaced several of its gas lines in the project area last summer.
Carolyn Misch, the City of Northampton’s Planning & Sustainability Director, told StreetsblogMASS that the city’s engineering consultants had been coordinating with Eversource to ensure that those new pipes would not conflict with the Main Street project.
But last November, an Eversource official informed the city that the company could not confirm where its new pipes had actually been installed.
“We were about to submit our 100-percent design plans to MassDOT (the final step before beginning construction),” said Misch. “But MassDOT told us, ‘you’ve gotta figure this out.’”
To confirm where Eversource’s gas lines actually are, the city had to hire contractors this spring to dig over a dozen “test pits” – small boreholes to let workers look underground.
“Now we have that information, we have to determine how far off are they are from our plans,” explained Misch. “We know there are some design revisions we need to make, because they’ve put the lines right where a traffic signal mast-arm foundation was supposed to go.”
The mistake will add thousands of dollars in new costs for last-minute design revisions, and will likely delay the project’s groundbreaking until 2027.
As we’ve reported previously, Eversource is a common source of delays and cost overruns to transportation projects across Massachusetts.
But alongside other methane gas suppliers in Massachusetts, the utility has also come under fire for lavish spending on pipe replacement projects.
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