After years of planning and assessments, a complete reconstruction of Main Street in Northampton, Massachusetts is set to start in 2026 and is designed to provide more safety for pedestrians but has faced several criticisms.

Like many people who live or work in Northampton, Alyx Smith, a keyholder at Newbury Comics Northampton, is concerned with pedestrian safety downtown.

Smith said they have almost been hit crossing the street while walking to work and have witnessed people almost get run over on the crosswalk by Newbury Comics.

“People drive really irresponsibly around there, and I think because of how poorly laid out the roads are,” Smith said.

According to Carolyn Misch, the director of planning and sustainability in Northampton, Northampton has the top five highest crash incidents in the commonwealth. Misch said the project has been in the planning process since 2000 as an evaluation of how to fix safety issues along Main Street.

According to the Picture Main Street website, the redesign incorporates recommendations and findings from decades of planning, community engagement and study. The project’s main goal is to make Main Street more bicycle and pedestrian friendly.

“This was a pressing problem we needed to address,” Misch said. “We needed to address what was happening in our downtown retail sector.”

Misch saw the impact of online shopping and how it affected downtown and wanted to make sure city planning was revisioning what downtown can be. Part of redesigning a street meant getting in line through the regional transportation planning process.

First, a project number was needed, designated by the Mass Department of Transportation (MassDot) to get in the queue for the region, and then move up.

According to the City of Northampton website, the reconstruction will assess every physical aspect of the street such as the roadway, sidewalks, civic spaces, traffic signals and underground utilities that could potentially be a part of the design and construction process.

The project includes amenities such as street trees, benches and seating, lighting, vehicle parking, bus stop amenities and planting areas. The Picture Main Street website shows the plan includes three marked travel lanes such as a left turn lane, angled parking, separated, sidewalk-level bike lanes and sidewalks from 6 to 35 feet in width. Curb extensions would be used to narrow most crossings to an average of 38 feet. 57 parking spaces would be removed as a part of the reconstruction.

The project will extend from the intersection of Elm and West Streets to the intersection of Market and Hawley Streets.

Misch said the sidewalk will be expanded to allow for dedicated dining spaces on the sidewalk and retail spaces.

The City of Northampton website says the latest Transportation Improvement Program cost estimate for the project is approximately $29 million based on MassDOT’s 2024 construction quantities tabulation.

Misch said that the way that projects like Picture Main Street are funded in Massachusetts is that the communities are responsible for paying the cost for designing the project. Once the design is accepted by MassDot, it will pay for the construction of the project.

Parking is a concern for people who work in Northampton. Smith, who drives to work, is concerned about the project’s goal to eliminate 57 parking spaces in the area.

“We have to park out in residential parking half a mile away from the store at this point, because there is not really any allocated space for anybody who works in the area to park,” Smith said. “I don’t know that it is a sacrifice that would have that long term of a thing.”

Misch said city planning has evaluated the parking situation in town and has made changes, including replacing 57 parking spots with parallel parking instead of angled parking.

Misch added that city planning has instituted a change in preparation for the reduction of parking spaces. Currently there is no maximum amount of time you can stay parked on Main Street. The plan will increase the rate per hour for parking on Main Street and will reduce it on  side streets.

The structure would be changed to ensure people can park quickly in front of shops and if they want to stay longer to park farther away, park around the corner, or park in the garage.

Misch said that since the coronavirus pandemic, outside dining areas took up parking spaces. In total, the number of parking spaces in those dining areas is equal to the number of spaces that would be disappearing.

Valle Dwight, a resident of Northampton since 1993, said she is excited about the reconstruction and that it is looking to the future, “It’s putting emphasis on humans as opposed to cars….I think during COVID we really saw the value of that kind of room for humans.”

Robert McGovern, the owner of Packard’s in Northampton, said foot traffic has been down by 50% since the 1980s and 1990s. He thinks people will avoid downtown because of traffic that could be caused by the redesign.

“We need people, we don’t need bigger sidewalks,” McGovern said.

The project is estimated to be completed by 2028. Misch noted that city planning has started a stakeholder group that will address individual business owners’ concerns about the construction in order to work together with businesses and support them as much as possible.

Dwight said, “Things have to change, things have to move forward and sometimes that causes slight disruption in our lives, but we will survive.”

Isabella Kosiba can be reached at [email protected]