Concord’s city councilors turned away a $1.4 million infrastructure grant Monday, opting instead to pay on the city’s own dime for much of the same work.
The federal money would have come with an important string attached – which many locals found unacceptable – that through traffic on Loudon Road be reconfigured from four lanes to three, including a central, two-way turning lane, for a perceived safety benefit.
In a 10-5 vote, the councilors narrowly achieved the two-thirds majority required to reject the grant and approve a $1.2 million bond to repave the road without changing the traffic configuration.
While some councilors still support the “Loudon Road diet,” which was soundly rejected by the people who live nearby, the majority opinion was that the road needs to be paved soon, regardless of what other safety improvements are to be made.
“I understand your concerns, but I think we’ve looked at this for 10 years,” said Councilor Candace Bouchard. “This is where we are now. It’s what the people asked for.”
Councilor Dan St. Hilaire said the council’s 2014 vote supporting the diet – which was reversed in September after an outpouring of public testimony – is the single issue about which he hears most often from constituents. He said he couldn’t believe some councilors were considering delaying further or attempting to resurrect the reconfiguration plan.
“They all said we want you to leave Loudon Road the way it is with the four-lane configuration,” he said. “If we go ahead and delay this again, I guarantee you there will be a backlash.”
The diet was perceived by the state’s Department of Transportation, which administers the federal grant money, to be a worthy safety improvement on an accident-prone east-west thoroughfare. That’s why it awarded the $1.4 million Highway Safety Improvement Program grant in 2014, the bulk of which would have paid for a repaving effort the city will undertake anyway.
But at a well-attended September meeting in the city’s Heights neighborhood, where nearby residents would be most directly affected by the change, most people rejected the engineers’ assurances that traffic would not be gridlocked and the turning lane would not invite a more dangerous type of crash.
When the city council met less than a week later, its members were swayed by the grassroots testimony. They flipped their previously unanimous approval of the diet in an 8-4 vote, deciding instead to maintain four lanes of traffic and manage access points where possible.
It appeared, at that time, that the city could still benefit from $120,000 of the grant to address some disruptive curb cuts, a lesser sum proportional to the state engineers’ opinion that it was a lesser safety improvement.
But City Engineer Ed Roberge wrote in a report to the city council that he recommends the city forgo the grant funding altogether.
“Given the limited amount of grant fund eligibility . . . and the need to maximize flexibility in modifying driveways along the Loudon Road corridor, staff recommends that the project be completed without HSIP funding,” he wrote.
For some, the decision is seen as a missed opportunity. Concord resident Althea Barton wrote in a Monitor letter to the editor that she expects it will be decades now “before the Heights receives the attention it needs.” She said people’s fear of change could jeopardize safety.
“The voice of worry has grown louder than the voice of reason,” she wrote.
At the public hearing Monday, several speakers pointed to the death this month of an 83-year-old woman who was struck by a car while crossing Loudon Road on her way to church. Resident Robert Baker said the road, which has no median to separate its four lanes, presents a challenge for pedestrians like Yvonne Burroughs.
“Her community is cut in half, you know? It’s severed by this very busy road,” he said. “And I think one death is too much.”
In a roll call vote, however, the city councilors showed they weren’t willing to revisit the three-lane solution that Baker supported, and they had faith in the crossing changes promised as part of the $1.2 million project.
In addition to repaving, it will include sidewalk and crosswalk improvements and the closure or reduction in width of select driveways.
That work will begin early next year, pre-empted by some minor pavement repairs this fall.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)