Road Diet For Worcester 'Superhighway' Draws Cheers, Some Jeers

WORCESTER, MA — A meeting Monday between city officials and residents about a project to change the configuration of Mill Street began with a bit of levity.

Stephen Rolle, the director of Worcester's new Department of Transportation and Mobility (DTM), asked the large crowd gathered in an auditorium at the Mill Swan School if they knew the speed limit along Mill Street, a 130-foot wide, four-lane road that zips from Tatnuck Square to Webster Square at Park Avenue.

"I should've asked you to guess," he said to laughter from the crowd.

The official speed limit is 30 mph, but few drivers heed that. Drivers travel near 40 mph on average, Rolle said.

Monday's meeting came after a few weeks of tension over a planned road diet for Mill Street. The city is in the midst of resurfacing the road between Tatnuck and Coes Beach. After resurfacing, Mill Street will be repainted to reduce the number of driving lanes to one in each direction. The city will also paint new bike lanes next to the curbs, which will be buffered from the street by a lane of clearly marked parking. A new crosswalk will also be added at June Street, and existing crosswalks will be brought in line with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

When the plans became public several weeks ago, neighbors called for a public hearing, with District 5 city council candidate Jose Rivera filing a petition with the council to stop the project — specifically, the lane reduction and bike lane piece, not the road resurfacing — until after a public hearing. Rivera supporters campaigned outside the meeting, holding his signs paired with school committee candidate Kathy Roy.

Rolle, Todd Kirrane, the assistant director of DTM, DPW Director Jay Fink and District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj made the case at Monday's meeting in favor of the project, providing residents with data on speeding, traffic volumes and traffic crashes as evidence.

Haxhiaj acknowledged the city should've done a better job communicating with residents about the project, but promised the redesign would be a benefit for the neighborhood, and for the entire city.

"Let's not let what happened harm the vision for a safe community," she said. "Let's make sure Mill Street is a safe place for all."

According to Rolle, Mill Street sees between 8,300 and 11,000 vehicle trips per day. That traffic volume is about 50 percent lower than what typical four-lane roads see, so reducing the road to one driving lane in each direction won't cause traffic delays, he said.

Rolle also said the average driver on Mill Street goes about 10 mph over the posted speed limit, with 15 percent of drivers going higher than 45 mph — what he called "highway speeds."

The width of the road and the speed of the traffic has led to 269 crashes over the past five years, plus five crashes where pedestrians were injured. That number of crashes is about 1-1/2 times higher than roads of similar type in Massachusetts, he said.

Kirrane said roads like Mill Street — which typically date to the 1950s and 60s, when only cars were considered in road designs — are "dangerous by design." Pedestrians who cross Mill Street have to navigate four "conflict zones," or areas where they are at highest risk of getting hit. Kirrane also said pedestrians have a 90 chance of dying in a collision with a vehicle traveling 40 mph or higher

The officials said the project is in line with a "complete streets" policy approved by the Worcester City Council in 2017. The policy requires the city, when feasible, to make safety improvements during road projects to include all road users. The Green Worcester Plan, adopted by the council in 2021, also calls for streets to be redesigned to have room for alternative modes of travel, including biking, walking and rolling. There's also a new category of transportation emerging called "micromobility," which includes modes like scooters and electric bikes.

Officials described the re-striping of Mill Street as an "interim" complete streets project — one that can be completed quickly and easily without much renovation to the existing roadway. Rolle said the city has applied for federal funds to plan a more permanent redesign of Mill Street, the first step down a path to rebuilding the sidewalks, roadway and other pieces of infrastructure. He promised "substantial public input" for any future redesign.

There were mixed reactions from the crowd about the project, with some doubting it would improve safety, and others fearing new congestion. Some who spoke against the project said the priority should be building new sidewalks. The ones in place are narrow, often get used for parking and are blocked by overgrown poison ivy and Japanese knotweed in spots.

Fink said the city has only budgeted about $1 million for sidewalk repairs this year, and redoing all of Mill Street's crosswalks would cost significantly more than that. Although not ideal, the sidewalks will have to do until the street can be designed under a permanent complete streets plan, officials said.

Other residents were still upset about how the project was communicated. Resident Paul Gunnerson, who was wearing a hat that said "I miss the America I grew up in," said the Mill Street change reminded him of a redesign a decade ago in Tatnuck Square. He said the city only approached residents after plans were in place for that project. He said neighbors "never have a say" in changes near their homes.

Some in attendance spoke passionately in favor of the project, including one man who said he looked outside one day and saw a young boy lying on the street after getting hit by a driver. WalkBike Worcester coordinator Karin Goins said the Mill Street project could be a "community education piece" to show other residents how road diets work.

"Slowing lanes saves lives," she said.

Resident Eric Stratton, who spoke while holding his 1-year-old daughter, said he brings his kids to play at Coes Park, but said it's "terrifying" to ride his bike and get passed on Mill Street by a driver going 50 mph. Another woman called Mill Street a "superhighway."

The new bike lane will be 6 feet wide and will line each side of Mill Street between Tatnuck and where the road reduces to two lanes near Coes Pond Beach. The bike lane will be buffered from the road by parking spots. There will also be a 3-foot buffer between cars and the bike lane to prevent doorings. The city is not installing physical barriers between parking spots and the bike lane.

Rolle said the Mill Street project should be done before school starts up around Labor Day. Work on resurfacing has been going on for weeks. Once that's done, the new lane reconfiguration can be put in place.

Officials pointed out that Massachusetts in 2022 saw a record number of road deaths involving pedestrians and cyclists — and Worcester had the second-highest number of deaths in the state behind only Boston. One of those deaths was Candice Asare-Yeboah, a 5-year-old girl who died after getting hit by an SUV driver while in a Stafford Street crosswalk in April 2022. Stafford Street along with Burncoat and Grove streets are also up for major road safety changes, officials have said.

Rolle said the resurfacing project along Mill Street provided an opportunity to do something about Mill Street now rather than waiting years to plan, design and seek funding for a complete redesign. Or waiting until someone got seriously hurt or worse crossing or biking along Mill Street.

"Something needed to be done," he told the crowd.