Corrected and updated March 20, 2020
At an upcoming March 25 public discussion meeting, citizens will be asked to express their opinions on three different designs for a proposed renovation of Ayer Road, and to provide further feedback. During a March 9 interview, Department of Public Works Director Tim Kilhart and Director of Community and Economic Development Chris Ryan shared information about the proposed project.
What would be done?
This project would repave Ayer Road from the Ayer town line to the bridge over Route 2 and install a pedestrian and bicycle path along that length of road (approximately 1.7 miles). It would also slightly realign Poor Farm Road’s intersection with Ayer Road, improving sight lines and making it intersect at a 90-degree angle. TEC, the engineering company Harvard hired to design and engineer the project, has presented three alternative designs. According to Ryan, TEC recommends the first design as the most cost effective.
Design One keeps Ayer Road in its current roadbed and reduces the current 12-foot travel lanes to 11 feet. It places the mixed-use path on the west side of the road (the post office side). The path would be 3 to 5 feet from the road and 8 to 10 feet wide.
Design Two keeps Ayer Road in its current roadbed and gives it 11-foot lanes. It places the bicycle and pedestrian path on the east side of the road (the Dunkin’ Donuts side). The path would be 3 to 5 feet from the road and 8 to 10 feet wide.
Design Three moves Ayer Road so that the road and path are centered on the existing roadbed. It gives the road 10-foot travel lanes. It places the path on the west side of the road. The path would be 5 feet from the road and 10 feet wide.
According to Kilhart, Ayer Road has not been repaved since 1992, meaning the paving has already exceeded its expected 20-year lifespan. He said that if the road is not repaved soon, it will begin to greatly deteriorate over its entire length. He cautioned that, in addition to inconveniencing drivers, the piecemeal patching necessary to keep such a road in a drivable state would be a large drain on DPW resources that would continuously increase over time.
Process and funding
According to Kilhart, the most recent estimates of the project’s cost place it at $6 million, which would be too much for Harvard’s normal roadwork budget to cover. Because of this, Harvard will seek funding from the federal TIP (Transportation Improvement Program) for the project. Kilhart described the program as “the biggest pot of funding Harvard can reach out to for road work,” and said it was unlikely any other program would pay for the project.
TIP is a competitive program in which Harvard would vie with other nearby towns for a limited annual pool of funding. Because of this competition, a significant design consideration has been making the project attractive to TIP based on its guidelines and metrics. Kilhart expressed confidence that the currently proposed designs for the project would prove attractive to TIP, and that Harvard would receive funding soon.
TIP normally operates on a five-year design cycle, meaning that a project approved now would take five years to complete. However, according to Kilhart, some current TIP projects may drop out, leaving room for Harvard to jump ahead in the queue. Because of this, he was unable to provide an estimate for when work would begin on the project.
TIP recommends that towns complete engineering work for the projects before applying for funding. To satisfy this recommendation, Harvard allocated $300,000 for engineering work at the 2019 Annual Town Meeting. TIP also requires that towns acquire all the rights of way through which roads will travel, an expense for which Kilhart did not provide an estimate. According to Kilhart, TIP would then pay for all other construction costs once the project was approved.
The engineering work that TEC has completed reaches the 10% design milestone. Kilhart said it is still possible to make significant alterations to the design at this stage without incurring great expense. He emphasized that it will be important for the Select Board to reach a final design consensus based on the results of the March 25 meeting, because once the design proceeds to the next milestone (25%, at which point the state requires a formal public hearing), it will be impossible to make significant changes to the design without allocating more funding for engineering work.
Narrower lanes, but no roundabout
The three proposed designs make use of a traffic-calming measure called “road dieting,” which refers to narrowing the travel lanes to reduce the speed of vehicles. Ayer Road currently has 12-foot lanes, which would be reduced to 11 or 10 feet, with the additional width going into the road shoulder.
The design does not include any other traffic calming measures, such as a roundabout or traffic light. According to Kilhart, state guidelines recommend installing such features only when there is a large volume of traffic passing through a location from multiple directions. While the traffic along Ayer Road meets the cutoff, none of the sidestreets that connect to it does. Kilhart expressed his concern that, if Harvard insists on including a roundabout in the design, TIP will not approve the plan, leaving Harvard with neither the roundabout nor the repaving.
According to information provided this week on the town’s website, the Department of Public Works and the Planning Board will hold a “public listening session” at Town Hall Wednesday, March 25, at 7 p.m.
Editor's note: This article has been corrected and updated. The original article incorrectly stated that the town’s engineering consultant, TEC, had recommended the first of its three designs as the most cost effective (keeping the roadway in the current roadbed). In fact, TEC recommends the third design, which would center the new roadway and mixed use path over the current road bed, reducing the amount of new right-of-way the town would need to acquire.
