Concord's Main Street Goes One-Way on April 16

The much anticipated conversion to southbound traffic only on North MainStreet between Centre Street and Pleasant Street will go into effect on Thursday, April 16, according to a press release.

During this time the entire east side of North Main Street will be considered a work zone. This configuration will remain in effect until the end of June. During the early portion of next week (Monday to Wednesday) pedestrians and motorists can expect to see similar traffic patterns that have existed for the past couple weeks with lane closures and one-way alternating traffic in areas.

Monday will see work in front of Eagle Hotel. Tuesday (and possibly into Wednesday) work will take place in front of CVS. Also, Dimitri’s Tree at the entrance to Eagle Square, which has been beautiful refinished, will be unveiled. Wednesday, the parking meter kiosks on North Main will be removed, which will put into effect the 2-hour free parking on North Main St.

Looking beyond next week to Monday, April 20, the city of Concord would like to invite everyone to Capital Plaza at 10 a.m. for the Concord Main Street Project ground breaking ceremony.

There will be speeches by public officials and children are encouraged to come get their picture taken with Digger the project mascot, or with some of the construction equipment. So come be a part of history as we celebrate this monumental project and also try to break the crowd noise level record, with of course some help from our big, loud equipment.

Slow down!

Also, Concord City Manager Tom Aspell is urging drivers to slow down when driving on Main Street. In his April 3, newsletter, Aspell noted that traffic was flowing pretty smoothly downtown ... ”a little too smoothly, in fact,” because while cars were maintaining normal speed and, ideally, that’s too fast under current conditions.

“Motorists are advised to drop their speed to 10 mph or so when driving through the work zone to ensure the safety of workers and pedestrians,” Aspell wrote. “Pedestrians are asked to let the flaggers do their jobs and not charge into a crosswalk that is being controlled by a flagger without allowing the flagger to stop traffic.”

This is smart advice because the already close to $11 million project has little-to-no wiggle room since the overage budget is reportedly being diverted to pay for signage. A construction worker, flagger, or even Digger, the costumed mascot walking around downtown getting hit by a motorist, especially an uninsured one, would not be good for the taxpayers of the city who can’t really afford to get fleeced anymore.