How’s your French? Well, work on it or you shall miss all my funnies today. It’s time to hear again about the Route 30 Reconstruction Project, also known as let’s make east-west traffic easier at the cost of completely forgetting our town is north-south oriented. Oh wait…what? No, in this case, the idea is to make north-south crossings a bit safer at Oak, Ash and Winter. Yay traffic planners!

The Owl has covered some of this in a March post here, and would highly recommend taking the Owl’s comments with a huge pillar of salt as she had to fight the good fight to get across Route 30 at Winter at 8 am this morning. The traffic light there (proposed) *should* help with her therapy bills.

Here’s the official word: The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), is hosting a Public Hearing regarding the proposed Route 30 Reconstruction Project in the Town of Weston, which includes safety and infrastructure improvements.

Design Public Hearing Details:

The hearing is available to all members of the public. The virtual hearing will occur Thursday, September 22, 2022 at 6:30 p.m. Members of the public can access the meeting via the MassDOT Design Public Hearings webpage.

The purpose of this hearing is to provide the public with the opportunity to become fully acquainted with the proposed roadway project. All views and comments submitted in response to the hearing will be reviewed and considered to the maximum extent possible [Ed: Would anyone like a translation of “maximum extent possible”? No, I think you’ve got it].

Project Information and History: 

The proposed project consists of corridor improvements along the entire length of Route 30 within the Town of Weston, from the Natick town line to the intersection at Cutters Bluff (end of Town layout). The total project length is approximately 3.7 miles.

The proposed work will include a combination of resurfacing and box widening to achieve a standard pavement width including 11- foot travel lanes and 3-foot shoulders. A 10-foot Shared-Use Path (Ed: abbreviated officially as SUP, but that’s a Stand Up Paddleboard so let’s called that a SHUSPA) is proposed to run along the southern side of the Route 30 from the Natick town line to Newton Street where it will cross to the north side until the eastern project limits.

New traffic signals are proposed at the Winter Street and Oak Street intersections, and a pedestrian-emergency hybrid signal is proposed at the Ash Street intersection. The desired goal is to provide appropriate and safe bicycle and pedestrian accommodations while addressing system preservation of the roadway, through a context-sensitive design. [Ed: “context-sensitive design”? Ummmm….whaaaat? That sounds very business school-y. But actually means paying attention to all the details.]

The Town of Weston’s Route 30 Reconstruction webpage has additional information and answers to frequently asked questions that members of the public may have regarding the proposed project. In addition, MassDOT’s webpage has additional information as well on their website. Project inquiries may be emailed to MassDOTProjectManagement@dot.state.ma.us.

*Not really.