By the indications he got at a public informational meeting Wednesday, Keith Cota of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation said Loudon and Canterbury residents seem pleased with the idea of adding a center turning lane on Route 106.
“Very positive,” Cota said Thursday. “We heard a lot of support for the project. I think the message I heard is that really getting out of thru traffic to make a left turn will be very beneficial for this corridor.”
A call for comment to the Loudon select board was not returned by press time Thursday.
Cota, who is the chief project manager for NHDOT’s highway design bureau, said the project proposal is the end result of an original 1995 corridor traffic study, which looked at the length of Route 106 between Interstate 393 and Belmont.
“As part of that original study they recommended a major improvement to this whole corridor,” Cota said, due to predicted traffic increases in the future. The improvement included widening the road to two lanes each way, plus a wide median.
The project was approved as part of the state’s 10 year transportation plan at the time. It never actually happened in full, though.
“The only funding that was coming forward for the program was for interim improvements,” Cota said. “Money never really materialized for the full bill of that construction.”
NHDOT conducted a follow-up study in 2011 and 2012, consolidating the “corridor” between Interstate 393 and the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. At that point, Cota said transportation officials realized that the original improvement project might be overkill, since the predicted traffic increases from almost two decades previous never came true.
“We actually saw traffic decline in volume,” he said.
Following that report, an alternative improvement project was decided upon: adding a simple turning lane in the center of Route 106, widening the 48-foot road to 60 feet.
The project was included in Gov. Hassan’s 2016-17 proposal for the state’s 10-year transportation plan, and legislators approved it this past session.
Cota presented the project to local residents Wednesday, at a public informational hearing in Loudon. He explained that the plan was to widen Route 106 between Suncook Road in Loudon and Ames Road in Canterbury, a 3.2 mile stretch.
“We did not recieve any negative feedback,” Cota said. A few people, he did add, were concerned about what might happen to their front lawns, and they also mentioned some extraneous issues they had with the intersection at Staniels Road and the speed limit.
“Some people were supporting a lower speed limit,” Cota said.
As for the question at hand – about widening the road – Cota said the only potential issue could be what effect the project has on historic properties. There are three buildings older than 50 years along the stretch.
Cota said NHDOT is still assessing the properties, though he didn’t think any problems would be present.
“We don’t see it to be it to be an issue for this project,” he said.
Following Wednesday’s meeting, which Cota said lasted just over an hour, NHDOT will now refine the improvement plan before presenting it again at a formal public hearing in February or March.
If all goes smoothly, Cota said right-of-way acquisitions would start after that meeting.
“With the intent of constructing the project in the 2019 construction season,” he said.
Though the project timeline may seem sluggish to the typical observer, Cota said this is standard.
“Typically for a project of this caliber, it could take anywhere from three to five years to get through the process for construction.”