We have some of our public officials here who I want to introduce you to.

President of the Board of Alderman Laurie Welsher is in the back.

Thank you, Laurie.

Paula Johnson is the first the Alderman from Board 5.

Ernie, who we miss.

Two different personalities.

It's nice having Ernie on the board of Alderman, but here he is, and he retired and Paul was elected.

So what we wanted to do tonight is brief you on kind of where we are with the uh with the West Hollow Street corridor.

We've had some other meetings.

Some of you may have been here before, but this is more or less of an update.

And again, get your input or thoughts regarding anything that's presented.

Now, in addition to me, we have Dan Hudson, who's the city, he's the city engineer, so he'll be talking through some of the project.

Mark Sonders is the deputy city.

Of course, you know Lisa Fogo, directly public works.

So our underlying purpose here is we realize that the West Hollow Street Corridor, you know, has become, and it's gotten worse over time.

Uh a very heavily traveled corridor, kind of a speedway.

And we know that it is very difficult for many of the people who live along the corridor.

Uh the various neighborhoods that we have, really nice neighborhoods.

Often it's a hard, it's hard even getting onto the street.

Um, and certainly uh the corridor is not pedestrian friendly and not neighborhood friendly.

So we are trying to design and hopefully implement a number of changes that will improve the situation.

And the as you will hear from the engineers, the uh project is at least as we've outlined it, is designed is is divided into various phases.

Uh you'll hear the details, but the first phase is as we've discussed it.

The first phase is near the charter school, the micro society charter school, where we think there's a dangerous situation because many people are coming in and out, uh the parents that uh picking up and leaving off the kids, and many have to make a left turn coming back towards the city, towards you know, downtown, uh heading east.

So they have to turn uh across book two lanes or two two directions of travel.

Uh so you'll hear what the details are there in terms of what we think would improve that situation.

Uh both both from a safety and a kind of a traffic comment point of view.

Uh so I'm gonna turn you over to the engineers, but uh Paul wanted to, I think uh say a few words, and um so here's Paul.

Thank you, Maya.

Appreciate it.

I just want to thank everybody for coming tonight.

I appreciate it.

Um I could tell probably a lot of you get my newsletter, and I appreciate all the support.

I just want to say one thing.

I'm looking at the map, and I live right by the micro society school, is that's how come I know it's so bad.

But the other part is I think you can't do that unless you take a look at Riverside, the way the merging comes in.

Because when it merges, there is no lane.

They marched from the left to the right, and they're cutting everybody off.

And now the school is lining up for pickup in the morning and even drop off, and there's no lane there.

So now you've got emerging this way, you got them going this way, and you got cars here.

So I think you've got to take a look at whereas number nine comes.

I should say this, I'm not an engineer, but I've lived there for 42 years.

Um, and that light at um Wellesley, I was part of that.

Remember Don Dyer, Alderman Don Dyer?

Okay.

I know, I know, but that's okay because when they were building Ledgewood Hills, and I wasn't even involved in politics.

I said we maybe maybe we should get a light over there because one day West Holler Street is going to become busy.

So that's how I started back then, and I think that you have to take a look at Riverside and the micro society school as like one piece because of the way the school was.

The school is wonderful, nobody has any problem with it, but the planning board didn't, in my opinion, didn't do their job right when they allowed it to go in to take a look at how the traffic was going to be, and that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you very much.

Well, um here, and uh, you know, we're here to answer any questions, comments, or uh thank you, Mayor.

I'm just gonna try to stand here.

I can speak into the mic, see the screen, all that good stuff.

But uh thanks for coming.

Uh I know there's some new faces, so we're gonna do a little bit of a recap of how we've gotten to today.

Uh, and then we'll go through uh some updates uh from recent updates.

So it's just kind of the agenda we're gonna go through here today.

It'll be quick.

Uh mayor introduced everyone.

In addition, we have Jeff LaFleur.

I don't know where you go.

He's the uh superintendent of solid ways.

So uh just wanted to welcome him as well.

Um so we engaged uh a number of years ago uh a consultant to carry us through a corridor study on the West Hall Street corridor.

So the corridor is uh two point mile, two point nine mile segment, at least that's the part we studied, going from Riverside Street all the way out to uh the Hallestown line.

Um the study started in uh July 2023 with the goal of trying to identify both short-term and long-term improvements along the corridor to address some of the uh safety concerns uh that everybody's aware of, including particularly for the bicycles and pedestrians.

Um we had held uh our first meeting back in February 6th of 2024.

Um we came to that meeting with no information basically.

Just said, tell us about the corridor, what's your experience, uh, what do you see?

Um, and kind of gathered all that feedback, and then with it working with the engineers we went and uh developed a couple alternatives.

Um there was uh a flush uh median alternative, which is basically lead the core pretty much the way it is, except uh put a flush median down the middle, trying to slow traffic down, um, and fill in the sidewalk apps on each side of the road.

Um and then there was this another alternative, which is a shared use path along the entire corridor.

We came away from that second meeting with the understanding that the the shared use path was a preferred alternative.

There's a large uh uh demand, outcry, support, whatever you want to call it, uh for pedestrian safety.

It's very hard to get from A to B along the corridor, uh nearly impossible to cross uh cross West Hall Street, right?

Uh during uh most times of day, but especially the busiest times of day.

Um so we uh in that meeting we kind of walked through the details of that, which we can continue to cover.

Um but we've since then we've kind of stepped back and said, Okay, well, this is a very long, very expensive project.

You know, how would we break it up?

So, Mark will talk about that in a minute.

But um, so the preferred alternative, it includes uh or the vision here is a 10-foot wide shared use path uh for the length of the corridor.

Um still one vehicle in each direction, and left turn lanes where warranted at some of the uh heavier uh side streets, and then sidewalk on the north side.

So the it's envisioned that this uh uh multi-use path, shared use path will be along the south side of the road.

Uh it does cross over the north side near the charter school at that signal.

Um but that's that's the uh that's the vision.

Here's kind of an example.

This is Dorsa Street in South Burlington, Vermont.

Uh shows kind of what the concept here is.

Uh, you can see the vehicular lanes.

Um, there's a pedestrian crossing here with rectangular rapid flashing beacons and the island to try to make that safer.

Um come up to it, push the button, lights going, you know, you give it a you get a safer crossing.

Studies have shown that those uh improve yielding by drivers up to 80 percent.

We have a number of those around the city, I'm sure you're familiar with them.

Um the crossings along this corridor, we would anticipate having those.

But you can see on the right hand side that's the shared use path.

Um it's available for use by bikes uh as well as pedestrians walking, you know, pushing a pushing the baby carriage, whatever mode of travel you are that's uh non-motorized.

Um I'm gonna turn it to Mark, like I said, to cover the project phasing uh plots.

Thank you.

Uh Mark's always deputy city engineer.

Now the preferred alternative has been selected.

We did step back and take a 30,000 foot view of this of this project.

Transforming a three-mile corridor is um is a massive massive undertaking and it's expensive.

The project estimate, uh program estimate for a project of this size is around 16 million dollars, and that's in today's dollars 2026 dollars.

Uh with that, we try to find some natural breakpoints along the corridor to um to break the project up into phases.

We came up with nine phases, which are smaller projects within the larger project.

Um I do say smaller, but each phase is still a large project well within itself.

And the program and estimate estimate for each of these phases is anywhere from one to three million dollars.

Um I noticed when uh when you guys first walked in, I think everyone was kind of drawn to the role plan.

But um that is the phasing plan.

The next couple slides, I'll go into a little more detail of that.

But um, after the presentation, after we have some questions, if you guys want to hang around, take a look at it.

I'll be there.

I can hope hopefully answer any questions one on one if um if warranted.

Phase one, where to start.

The first phase location is the as was originally discussed, the Judgment Street Charter School intersection.

A big part of the study was to improve pedestrian pedestrian and bike facilities and safety.

So we looked at this as the end of that shared use path, which sneaks right by the charter school and outlets into Stellos uh Stello Stadium area as they can as pedestrians or bicyclists can meander on into Mine Falls.

Um, with that, it takes the shared use path to the west uh to the west.

Um and it also looks to build sidewalk at a mid-block crossing and um at a new signal at Gender Street at the charter school driveway.

Uh the next two phases, uh two through eight are in order as you head west towards Hollis.

Uh phase two is going to extend that shared use path uh just shy of Westgate Crossing.

Phase three is proposing a roundabout at Westgate Crossing as well as associated um pedestrian features.

Phase four continues that shared use path down past St.

Joseph's Church to um to Trussell Brook and adds another mid block crossing.

Phase five is proposed improvements here at the landfill, and it proposes a new signal at the landfill entrance.

Phases six, seven, eight continue west towards Hollis, and it extends that shared use path and it's segmented into constructible pieces.

Um I do have to go backwards to go forwards because phase nine is the river street intersection, and that looks to implement dedicated left turn lanes as well as tie Pataras Drive into the signal.

Um I like to note that that these are phases, they are dynamic, and that's part of what we're we're doing here tonight, and um they are a starting point.

Um, as I said, this is expensive, and this gives us a way to start to transform this corridor piece piece by piece.

Um, as this new corridor takes shape, um, implementing these phases will allow for the facilities as they're built to be ready to use as they dovetail into existing infrastructure.

Um, and with that, I'll turn it back over to uh to engineer Hudson.

Excuse me, did you say River Street?

I don't know if a river is Riverside Street with the Nashville South comes out.

Yeah, I think River Street.

Um just kind of cover some things that have happened along the corridor recently in terms of improvements.

I know it's been uh years since we last met.

You haven't seen much for change out there, but I just did want to highlight a couple things that have happened.

Um the charter school driveway is part of the school project, it was realigned.

Um they did that to line it up uh so that we can extend the signal down there.

Um that driveway uh positions across the street from Gendron.

Um really in order to signalize that you need that lined up.

So the school, when they came in, did their expansion through planning board, they did reconfigure the whole site circulation layout to set us up so that we can signalize that or basically include that in the in this in the signal at Wellesley.

Um wecured and installed some school zone radar speed feedback signs out there, so um those help give that uh visual indication what speed you're going relative to what the speed limit is.

They try to remind people that they should be traveling a reasonable speed.

Um, and then we also have installed some vehicle detection cameras at uh West Hall so Riverside Street uh intersection, and that will improve detection of vehicles.

Um we had the old loops in the ground, and those are okay, but these camera systems that we have nowadays um are doing a much better job of that of detecting vehicles.

Um it just tends to improve signal operation.

So where do we go from here?

Mark identified a number of phases.

Um it all starts with some funding.

We can't build anything, design anything without funding, right?

So that's our current charge.

We're we're planning and for these phasing and uh trying to set ourselves up for our future projects, but in order to advance these projects, it's gonna require some uh funding, and um that can come from a number of sources and um and we're we're working hard to try to secure that.

But we'll secure funding, and then each of these projects will go through its individual design phase.

So if we start the phase one design, for instance, that would be a project.

We collect survey, we do design, we would have public meetings like this to try to describe in detail, work through some of those details like Alderman Johnson reference.

She had some ideas about that merge area, so we would be designing and looking at in detail.

This level that we currently have is uh basically a concept plan, it's an idea, it's uh it's uh it's a depiction of what we think might work, but all these things need to be advanced through a full design process before they can be constructed.

Um obviously we get through design and process and we uh bid the projects out for public uh bid um leading us into construction.

So we are we are hopeful we we uh are glad there is so much support um for future improvements on the corridor, and we will continue to uh try to advance those once we have can some secure secure yeah, sorry, secure some funding for that work.

So that's what we had to present.

I know it's a kind of a brief update, um, but we are we're happy to uh take any additional input you've had.

Things have come up over the last year, uh, thoughts you you have, uh as well as questions.

Um but uh but I just ask if you do have uh questions that we use the microphone, and we're gonna we'll be happy to run that around to each of you.

Just raise your hand, we'll call on you.

Um I'll walk this one with me while I hand out a microphone.

Uh just please give your name and address for the record before you uh provide input.

My name's Ralph Bushar, I live in Westgate Village.

I'm at a loss to understand the logic of putting a street light at the dump and not putting one at Westgate Crossing.

Putting a roundabout there, you're gonna turn a bad situation into a nightmare.

That when David Fred was the government, the treasurer, I don't know if he still is or not.

He and I met with a whole bunch of people from the city, and we try to get a light out there.

And they put a uh uh uh you know a counter on Westgate Crossing.

We didn't make the count.

But the bottom line is you put a roundabout out there, that's gonna turn a bad situation into a nightmare.

That needs a light out there.

Not a roundabout, but a light.

Okay, thank you for your input.

Major major country.

Awesome.

Uh Carl Schadig, 10 Cimarron Drive.

Uh subject is the what you were just talking about, the roundabout, that's where I live.

Uh and my access to the world out there is is the roundabout.

Uh there's Scheidig's rule for roundabouts.

The roundabout has to be large enough so that when you're trying to enter it, you have time to figure out who is to your left and whether who is to your left is going to exit or stay straight ahead.

Why don't you watch for the return signal?

Nobody uses turn signal.

So you throw that one out.

Even if I saw one, I don't believe it.

Okay.

All right.

But what about how size is?

How about we go to the entry to Riviera College and Hayward's ice cream?

That nice little roundabout there.

That roundabout is so small that the you you you have to wait until nothing is happening to get out, because you either have to say, okay, I'm gonna make it, and and you come to this little screamer there, and the guy's coming up and you didn't wait for me, okay, or he gets off and you got a lot, you got lucky that day.

So that's I was stationed in Europe for three years, trust me.

I got roundabout experiences that would light your hair on fire.

Unless you can make a large roundabout, and even the one for what is that uh north school, south end, whatever the heck it is.

That's another one that's too small.

Right.

So yeah, whatever that's that's the one.

So um I'm I'm an electrical engineer, I'm not a street engineer, but it just strikes me that that's the rule you have to use.

Otherwise, the roundabout is exactly what you said.

It's a disaster waiting to happen.

So I I'm not gonna I I don't want to have uh extended debate about roundabouts tonight, but I I do appreciate the uh the input.

Um installation of traffic signals does require warrants, it's called so it's uh it's a matter of you know, do you have consistent enough high traffic on an approach to warrant a signal and you have to go through some state level permitting and that sort of thing to warrant it?

So what we found through the study is that that's not warranted currently at Westgate.

I do appreciate that a lot of people live out there.

Um the roundabout uh you have to slow down, which is what makes them safe.

They're very safe intersection um uh treatment.

So but they don't they don't fit everywhere, and it's something that we can continue to consider as we go through uh the process.

So I just want to add those things to the record here.

Um I have two questions.

Uh you you talked about oh, I'm sorry, Chris Siebert.

I live at Ledgewood Hills.

Um you said you're trying you're securing funding.

Could you go into that with a little bit more depth?

And the other question I had is a a light at the charter school is only like I I'm not very good at spatial things, but like a hundred feet away or 75 feet from the Ledgewood Hills, Wellesley light.

How is that going to work with lights that close together?

Uh very good question.

So uh the reason that we think it could work there is because they're so close, we can uh we can make those two work together.

I don't know if it'd be a completely separate uh uh light.

Um if it was it'd be can all the timing would be coordinated with Ledgewood Hills.

Um but it may be able to be run off of one master controller that covers both you know the whole footprint basically.

So that's yet to be determined, but um but obviously the charter school is very very uh times a day that's challenging.

People are trying to get in and out, there's limited gaps, which everybody everybody uh suffers that along the corridor.

We understand that.

Um but certain times of day that adds a lot of congestion and issues in that area.

So we think that um with lining that driveway up, at least now it's feasible to do the light.

We'd have to go through additional study and design to make that happen.

But but um, but that's the thought there.

Um in terms of funding, uh, you know, large transportation projects like this, the funding can come from a number of places.

Um it can come straight from the federal government if you're so lucky to receive uh a grant from them.

Um we do a lot of projects through the New Hampshire Department of Transportation's LPA program or local project administration program where funding uh they they cover 80% of the funding, and the municipalities left to cover 20%.

Um obviously the city could decide to fully fund it 100% on their own, but there's a lot of competing uh needs in the city, of course, uh for funding, so that can be challenging with these larger projects, um usually done through a bond authorization, that sort of thing.

Um so all we're we're open to all options.

Uh we we uh we have applied for a couple grants.

Um we didn't one last year we didn't receive it, so we are do we are trying.

We're out there where when opportunities come up to uh try to secure funding, we're trying, uh but to date we haven't been successful been successful uh receiving that funding.

Um does that answer your question about the funding?

Okay.

I wish I wish I could say I had it in hand, but I don't.

I'm great, yeah.

Yeah, I don't need a microphone.

Honestly.

The TV guys wanted to.

Oh, okay, I got it.

All right, good.

So I live at Ledgwood Hills, and I was my question is is there any widening of the street?

And the reason I asked that is because when you're making that left-hand turn into Ledgewood Hills, the traffic that's traveling east is scarily close to your car.

So a little bit of widening would be nice at that point because you know, because it's like you got cars zooming on both sides of you as you're waiting for that light.

Yeah, uh great input, and we'll we'll take it under consideration.

I would say we're not quite at that level of design, like when we get into the detailed design on each of these locations, we'll we'll we'll look at all those details.

Um we are trying to add a 10-foot uh shared use path, so that takes up some space.

And I like that.

Yeah, but we but we do, but we do understand we need the width for uh traffic, regular traffic as well.

Thanks.

Question over here.

Ed Nusbaum, uh Ledgewood Hills.

Before you get all of this stuff done, can you please do something about the three manholes that are about three or four feet apart coming out of Westgate Village?

You can't avoid them.

And they're not at grade.

And so you're gonna have your front end out of line and everything else on those damn manholes.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Does anyone have a question?

Yeah, but you know, I was just addressed for the uh Carl Shadig uh 10 Cimarron drive.

Um the uh Ledgewood Hills light, which has been in existence for a long time, and I've been there for more than 30 years now.

Uh when the main traffic was going, it stayed green.

Life was good.

If anybody had a triggered the left-turn lanes, it's yeah, can't tell them.

Sorry, yeah.

Is it being on our are we on TV?

Come on, don't discourage me here.

It's probably a good back scratcher, too.

Um that that would trigger that, and the same thing coming out of Ledgewood or coming out of the other side.

That to me is normal light operation.

Since the school went in, somebody tinkered with it, in my opinion.

I'd like to know the answer, and started fiddling with leaving, you know, having it just turn red and green and red and green, whether anything was on the side streets or the left curve.

I agree.

Is it my imagination?

No, I okay.

Let me I'll just uh try and get this mask on.

I like the little uh rubber ducky vertical baby bumpers that got out there and got annihilated every whatever.

I assume we've given up on that.

I don't even know whose idea it was.

I know I can't put them up there.

Is that the last question?

Yeah, that's the last question.

I'll take them in order.

So the uh in terms of the signal, uh in terms of did somebody fiddle with it, yes, that was Mother Nature.

Um we had we've had some lightning storms and various things, and uh we had a hit at that cabinet.

So for a period of time it's it's uh been in like a recall mode where it goes through uh standard operation.

That's kind of a fail-safe for signals.

Um detection issues.

If there's ever an approach where it doesn't see anybody for a period of time, it will start calling that even though there's nobody's there.

So I know you've all probably had the experience you pull up uh to a light, it's red on your approach, nobody's there.

You're like, what the heck is going on?

Well, probably it's fallen into that fail-safe mode um to make sure that it at least functions, and and when you see something like that, give us a call.

We're we're happy to come out and try to address it.

Um in terms of those things that got annihilated.

That was uh that that was intentional.

That was my idea.

Um, so I'll take full credit for that.

But it was uh it was it was a training uh exercise.

We did change the pattern there.

We added a left turn lane.

Um, and we wanted to discourage people from using a left turn lane as they normally would to uh you know bypass gender and all on down to Ledgewood, right?

Um and they did get smoked and uh and we did keep replacing them trying to reinforce that pattern.

So um now that school's operational and we hope there's less of that.

I I know I have seen people use that as a passing lane.

That really shouldn't be what you do.

You really should stay in your lane, follow the appropriate patterns.

That may mean you're slowed down, delayed a little bit, but um you are you are required for to do uh safe operation and follow the rules of the road.

So one second.

Do we have a time frame?

For projects?

Yeah.

Uh if you write me a big check tonight, we'll we'll get right on it.

No.

No, we thank you.

Uh unfortunately, no, uh like I said, it is uh it's all funding driven.

So every year the city goes through a budget cycle.

Uh every year the these grant programs are kind of on an annual cycle.

Uh there's another grant opportunity coming up we plan to apply for.

If we if we were successful in winning that, we would find out the end of the end of this year, and the funding wouldn't become available till about this time next year.

So uh so we we it's a cycle and we're just we're hopeful that we can uh we can uh find some funding at some point.

Um the city did last last year the city did uh set aside a couple hundred thousand dollars.

We've kind of set that aside for the time being.

That uh thinking that that could be our low towards our local match for a grant where we successfully receive a grant because we have to come up with that 20% if we were got a grant.

Um but you know, if that if uh things don't come to fruition, if we don't see any movement on that, we could take that and at least do something small on the corridor um in the future.

So yeah, I don't have any timelines for you today.

I'm sorry.

Uh uh Don Boray.

Uh we live at 11 trunk book, don't we?

River Pine.

So anyways, um I I have to tell you a little bit about why I'm asking this question.

I'm involved with the Gate City Bike Co-op.

And uh we've been around for eight years.

We've supplied over three thousand bikes to people who can't afford transportation, or they've lost their license because they made a mistake or two or three.

So, and these are adults.

80% of the bikes that we give out are to adults, not kids.

Now, our board of directors and the president, we've gotten together in the past year or so, and saying we've got to prepare for electric bikes.

We've got to prepare for clients who have legitimate jobs, but they can't either can't afford a car, even if they were given one, or they've lost their license and they need to get to work without driving a car without a license.

So this area, this 10-foot path area that you're talking about, not only has to accommodate a regular bike, but it would have to accommodate an electric bike that can go 20 miles an hour very easily.

Not only a regular bike, I have a regular electric bike, but I also am also thinking of getting a tricycle.

No, a tricycle electric bike.

I don't know sure how that's gonna work for me.

I you don't want to go more than 10 miles an hour.

So are you making some kind of accommodations for the future?

And I'm talking like 10 years from now, it is creeping up on us fast.

No, it's uh and thank you for that program that you're involved in.

That's a wonderful program.

Um, no, you raise an excellent point.

Uh very familiar with that.

Um, you know, as much space as we can get for the bikes.

Uh when you have bikes that are higher speed, mixing with people walking, you know, that's the concern, right?

So 18 miles an hour on a bike versus somebody walking slow, that's a concern a little bit.

Um no you raise an excellent point uh very familiar with that um you know as much space as we can get for the bikes uh when you have bikes that are higher speed mixing with people walking you know that's the concern right so 18 miles an hour on a bike versus somebody walking slow that's a concern a little bit so uh but no those are that's an important consideration certainly as we move into design project we would look at those details and try to plan for the future these projects are designed to you know last many years but we usually look at a 10 to 20 year horizon um for the project because reality is if we do a project like that we're not going to be back in that time frame to do something different so it's a it's a great point you bring up well you didn't see me but you just pass it all off uh Elaine Nasbaum Ledgewood um one of the frustrations I have traveling that West Hollow Street road pretty much every day so I'm coming home so I'm heading east and that right uh our outside lane is is about half what seems like a half a mile long now what happens is the people coming to come into that area now they decide to go in the inside lane and then they have to cut over to the other lane because that's where they have to make their turn and I'm thinking there's an accident waiting to happen here because I see them cut it very close.

And so um I'm thinking that that Riverside light stays on much too long and sometimes there's nobody coming and it's still in their favor.

Meantime we're backed up even from the west side going east and so that timing should be regulated a little bit better I would think.

So I uh I I agree with you and there is an issue with that signal too unfortunately uh we did put that camera detection up but um we're having uh a conflict in basically version wear of the controller versus the the uh detection equipment so we're working to address that issue and then you should see it be much more responsive to traffic um than it is right now and in terms of the merge issue I you know I recognize that that that is uh that is something that exists and a lot of people experience that so yeah you're waiting in the right lane and now everybody's cutting in yes I I understand do we have one over here I've got one I'm sorry go ahead sorry go ahead yes hi I'm Terry Negron I live on 28 Tanglewood drive and I drive this quite quite a bit are you going to coordinate with the town of Hollis at the westernmost part during that phase because it seems like the traffic is building up from mass in the town of Hollis coming towards Nashua and Route three in particular.

Uh no that's a great point we haven't to date but you're you're exactly right we should so as we advance projects we'll reach out to them and and try to coordinate efforts and and things yeah.

Thank you.

See if you can get some money from them.

We'll take it from where we get that they don't have that so I'm Ernie Jetty I live at Ledgewood also and since I'm not running anymore I I don't want to upset anyone but I like roundabouts.

I think they um you know they they allow traffic to enter into the major highway and for the major highway to you know it it's a smoother operation traffic lights stop the traffic so you know the you have to wait for the the light to change and I find you know my experience with roundabouts has been pretty pretty good.

So I like them.

But I another point I wanted to make is that uh you know with the um the traffic lights now at Riverside and and uh Wellesley Ledgewood um so the I think my my observation is that there's only a problem is certain you know that the rush hours you know the rush hour in the morning and the rush hour in the you know in the afternoon you know when school starts or ends and um but and it's only you know a certain number of months you know there's a lot of time time when they're not you know the schools aren't operating and uh at those times the you know the traffic you know operates pretty smoothly uh but you know the the traffic lights still stop the traffic and you're sitting at the light you know with with nothing you know if it seems like a long time and I I'm I'm hoping that this new technology you're talking about will able to figure it be able to figure out that you know there's no there's no traffic coming out of the school and that you know to allow the you know the east-west traffic to to move along unimpeded and so I hope that's that'll be part of this plan and and the third point I wanted to make is you know I'm I'm a bicyclist myself and I've uh I've been in cities you know that have um you know shared um you know pathways and uh and I I you know they seem to be able to um provide you know lanes for you know s faster traffic like bicycles and you know as opposed to uh pedestrians and baby carriage people and I'm I'm hoping that you know that that there is um you know

I'm hoping that this new technology you're talking about will able to figure it be able to figure out that you know there's no there's no traffic coming out of the school and that you know to allow the you know the east-west traffic to to move along unimpeded and so I hope that's that'll be part of this plan and and the third point I wanted to make is you know I'm I'm a bicyclist myself and I've uh I've been in cities you know that have um you know shared um you know pathways and uh and I you know they seem to be able to um provide you know lanes for you know faster traffic like bicycles and you know as opposed to pedestrians and baby carriage people and I'm I'm hoping that you know that that there is um you know you're ex looking at other places that you know that uh we can benefit from their experience and and come up with a safe way of allowing pedestrians and bicyclists uh or whatever even now the electric bikes that are gonna be even going faster you know to to be able to share that space safely thank you neighborhood for us Dan Kelly Ledgewood Hills is there a short term plan that will pave the road between Ledgewood Hills and down to the Greek church yeah we uh thank you for bringing that up we did uh we did talk about that we've obviously we all commute into here not all of us but uh all the public works we commute in here every day so we hit those same uh manhole covers a paw holes so uh yeah it was a particularly rough winter we've been patching them but we do it just we do plan to pave um uh from that pavement joint just west of Ledgewood Hills uh through Riverside so that is that is planned for later this year next year this year this year yeah thank you um is there any uh widening of the road necessary for to in order to accommodate the the shared path the road right now in many places is really not wide enough it is it gonna be like the city buying land or eminent domain or something like that uh so there'll be something yeah I I we haven't looked at that level of detail obviously we're adding in that additional width um if we if we we can narrow the roadway to add in that uh to some degree but there may be areas that we're bumping up against property that we need uh an easement right or an or an access so um we we try to avoid eminent domain whenever we can we're really not interested in forcibly taking property but um really at this level of design we just have a concept really can't answer that question directly we'd have to deal with that as each project uh as we went through each project but it will probably be necessary in some places some widening will be necessary yeah where the where the edge of sidewalk is in some places will probably encroach closer to properties that might happen even though the road shrunk and and we recoup some space for a shared youth path from the from the road width so um thank you yeah just passage deal joan champagne ledgewood hills uh when talking about the funding it sounds like a lot much of the money comes from either the federal government or grants and in that respect are we in competition with other projects within the city and for that money and if we are how's the determination made as to whose project wins uh excellent question I mean we uh the grant we didn't win we did go out we did have a feedback session and they said you had a great application you know minor tweaker here there but basically they were up front we got you know five times the amount of requests as we had funding for right so no matter who it is you go through a process a selection process they've vet each project's on its merits um and then it's you know how much funding is available totally and and and to individual projects for the state projects each they there's a 10 year plan process I don't know if you ever heard that word 10 year plan but um they uh it starts out at the regional level regions like uh national regional planning commission will there'll be a solicitation for 10 year plan projects we submit ours other communities in the same region submit theirs they go through a screening process get ranked and then uh those rankings come out of the region get forward up to the state level um and then the DOT does their ranking tries to vet things and then ultimately goes to the legislature um where the final decisions are made and things are approved finally by the governor so it's uh I like to think most of the criteria is on the merits of each project um sometimes there's obviously some some politics involved um on all the all levels of government so hopefully that helps to address the question on our own again getting back to the bikes but and again in a good sense I think this is for funding purposes uh the state of New Jersey now requires your electric bike to be uh licensed and registered and inspected of all things we're not inspecting them up here but they're inspecting bicycles down there but there are various ways that you can get the funding one of them and and I'm not in favor of this right just yet but would be to put

But and again in a good sense, I think this is for funding purposes.

Uh the state of New Jersey now requires your electric bike to be uh licensed and registered and inspected of all things.

We're not inspecting them up here, but they're inspecting bicycles down there.

But there are various ways that you can get the funding.

One of them, and and I'm not in favor of this right just yet, but would be to put some kind of um t tax, if you will, on electric bikes within the city.

I'm not really in favor of that, but it really has to be thrown out.

But the other way is to get money from bike manufacturers, Trek is very large company, and they can easily give quite a bit of money.

We've gotten quite a bit of money from them, and also the Park Tool Company, which is the largest tool maker of bicycle equipment accessories.

So it would be I think uh it would be kind of a novel idea to write to these companies and say we want to improve the bike layout in the city of Nashua.

Could you help us out?

That's interesting idea.

Thank you.

Uh Westgate Crossing, Margaret Maloney.

Um I'm trying to wrap my head around a roundabout, given that Westgate is a cook through between 11A and 11.

And how does it work with the retirement facility and the I guess rehab next door, which is growing.

And uh there's a and I just can't wrap my head around how all that's going to work because there's not only the traffic from the residents of Westgate, but you have the traffic going from one side to the other.

Um well, great, great, great input and uh comments.

I I'd say uh I thought with a roundabout, particularly at Westgate, we do recognize that's a fairly high volume location.

So if we're picking somewhere along the corridor, uh that seemed like a logical one.

The other thing that makes it what we feel to be a good choice is this kind of mid corridor roundabouts, you have to slow down.

You they're designed for 20 miles an hour plus or minus, so you need to slow down, and it it would be good along the corridor to have a place that people had to slow down, you know, instead of just being able to, you know, bomb through the corridor uh at whatever speed.

Um they do as as uh uh former jetty mentioned, they do uh process traffic fairly efficiently, they make for fairly safe product pedestrian crossing.

So in that location too, that's a good location, we think to be able to get people across the corridor, and it would work well with that.

Um being halfway uh down the corridor too, it helps.

If you're uh say say you're you're you're east of there, you're you're closer to downtown, it's very hard to turn left.

Well, you can instead turn right, go to the roundabout, go around it reverse direction, and then head the direction you want to go.

So for uh some portion of the core, it might it might make it uh easier basically to take a right and reverse direction versus trying to take a left um and to be able to do that safely.

So those are some of the thoughts why we picked that uh location um and we but we would need to dig into the details uh much deeper if we were gonna proceed with the project uh like that Paula are you cutting in?

Do you have to go to the other meeting?

No, I just no, I can stay here all night.

All right, I just wanted to make a comment on my Paula Johnson, Alderman Ward 5.

I just want to summarize what I'm hearing here, and I think it's and people can correct me if I'm wrong.

No one's really thrilled about the roundabout.

Um I'm sorry, all the chetty, I'll still call you all the m out of respect.

Um the shared bike path, I hear that seems pretty good here.

But I one of my concerns is again with the school, the the micro society school with the light, and is that how is it going to work because you only need it a couple of times a day.

So really, and I had suggested way before that maybe the school or it's it's set just a certain times during the day.

And I've heard also the cutting in, you know, where we know we're riverside moving people over to the right side, and then people and they do drive down that center lane to make that left turn, and it's very dangerous.

And so people who travel this every day and live there every day.

I mean, we could probably write a story about what's wrong and what needs to be done the most.

Um I think, and again I'm gonna say I think where it starts at Riverside down to Westgate is the most important area because after that the density of that area breaks up more.

And that's where the density of the population is on West Hollow Street.

Um I'm listening to about the funding, and um, you know, our budget is coming up.

I don't know what's in the budget because we haven't gotten the budget yet.

Um, but I think that you know, breaking it up into pieces is good, but again, you know, it is just a total nightmare that we've been talking about for years, and I know and may I don't take this the wrong way, but I know there's a lot of money going to downtown Nashua, and we all love downtown Nashua, but we live up on this side, and a lot of us feel that we're being slighted because of the fact there's so much downtown, and we see how this area is deteriorating.

And this is where your population is, and this is where the homes are, and we need to do something, and because it's not gonna get better once the DPW garage moves up to this area, we're gonna have more traffic.

And I'm gonna try to do another meeting on this in a couple of months so everybody knows what's going on here.

But I think this is a good start, a good talking point, and somehow we're gonna have to find ways at least to get some of this started so we can relieve some of this traffic from here to the school and then down to Westgate because it is a cut through.

We all know if we need to go from here to Main Dunstable, we cut through Westgate.

And the the residents of Westgate is very nice to us when we cut through.

But it's gotta be we need to do something about this, and I hope that this I'm glad everybody did come out tonight, and I thank you all, and I thank you all for your concerns.

And I'm gonna ask you if you can email me this presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Where where do we leave off?

Yeah, right there.

Okay.

I'm Kathy Peterson.

I live in Westgate Village 37 years.

Um just gonna say fast about each item.

I think the light at Riverside is way too long.

All times of the day, especially when the kids are getting out, but that's what makes the merge problem is how far back the right lane is backing beyond the Greek church.

So everybody starts cutting on the the left, angering everybody.

I mean, we could potentially put a sign up.

Left lane is for left turns only into Kensington, Gendron, um their village, Ledgewood Hill, the left lane.

But where it doesn't say anything, people going to Pepperl are in that lane and cutting right in on us all the time.

Um, I'm sitting there in that correct lane.

I see school buses coming out, 20 in a row with two kids in each one.

Hello?

I walk to school, yes.

Uh Westgate, I'm not in favor of roundabout.

I know I go through the one at Hayward's Ice Cream, I go through the one at uh Nashua North.

I don't feel with all the trucks coming back and forth, we're gonna really get out because I will be sitting there Westgate Crossing, waiting for a chance to come out one direction.

I don't think that's really gonna come.

So I too would like the funding of a light finally.

Um some people like my friend on the side of me have been living fifty years in that little stretch of West Holler Street.

There is no room to take any of her yard for a new sidewalk, her driveway straight down, she cannot back out ever after fifty years because the traffic both ways, she she can't get out.

If she loses any more of her driveway, that's I don't know.

Just it's gonna be a big project to figure all these things out.

But yeah, that school is deadly and yeah, we need to help them a lot, definitely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Chris Siebert, Ledgewood Hills.

I've heard a rumor that there's going possibly a development on the corner of Riverside where all those trees were cut a while back on the corner there.

Um I'm just wondering if there's any thought where would the entrance and exit for that development be when you think of planning this project because that is going to interfere with it.

Um first on the development there that can't be developed for like housing or anything like that.

There's a former landfill there.

And that would have to be excavated, which is is an enormously expensive.

So what we've thought about is establishing a soccer field or two there, if we can get the state DES Department of Environmental Security to approve that.

But so it could be, you know, athletic fields, but it would never be a development housing or commercial development of any kind.

But I thought I would address a couple other questions, uh, or several.

One, the funding, two, roundabout, and there was a third one which I forgot, but um maybe the roundabout.

I um if you look up roundabout capital of the United States, if you Google that, it is Carmel, Indiana, which is just north of Indianapolis.

And I think it's a newer city, it's an it's a sort of a built-out city.

I think they have over a hundred roundabouts.

And um my brother used to live there, so I went there and I had I experienced this thing.

It worked pretty well.

But the point of the who made the point about the roundabout being big enough.

Yes, back here.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely the case.

These are not these tight little roundabouts, these are which require a lot of property.

I don't know if there's enough at that intersection to build a larger roundabout, but something to think about.

As far as the funding goes, we are currently competing for this grant um to begin phase one.

Uh that you know, we might get that and we might not.

It's a competitive process.

But we'll so we'll see.

But I believe that to really get this thing off the ground, if we don't get that right away.

I mean, this is really going to really get the project going, it's gonna require local money.

Um that means, and the first phase is two million, two and a half.

Three marks is three three, mark says three, great.

Every time I hear the number, it's higher.

Yes, that's true of every project.

Um three million dollars.

So to really get it off the ground, if we don't get this grant, these state grants can take forever.

If we're gonna do this uh, you know, any time soon, if we don't get this initial thing, uh we really would need local money, which means we have to borrow the money at uh for that size of a project.

Uh that requires that the Board of Aldermen approve a bond issue.

That's a 10 vote majority with following a public hearing.

Um I think there might there are a lot of other projects, you know, um, but there might be enough support to do that.

Um I do think that this quarter is a big problem, and that this is probably something we should embark on locally if we can't, you know, it secure outside money in in fairly short order.

Um, the third the third subject, and who raised the issue of uh the downtown money?

Oh, Paula, okay, Paula.

Um now this is I I'm gonna say a misconception.

Yes, we have some very visible projects downtown, but we have spent far more on projects that have nothing to do with downtown.

The things we've done downtown that have cost significant money are the performing arts center, that was 21 million dollars, and now this riverfront improvement project, which I think will benefit everyone in the city, but still it's a downtown project, that's about 20 million dollars.

Compare that to the what we call the paving plan of action.

We have paved streets all over the city, seventy-five million dollars on that.

That is not downtown, and it touches every neighborhood of the city.

Number two would be the middle school improvement project.

We upgraded fairgrounds, we upgraded Penichuk and built McCarthy to substitute for Elm Street.

That is a hundred and twenty-three million dollars.

So when you put those two things, and that has nothing to do with downtown.

Now these are big dollars, I realize, but I'm just answering the point that oh, you're spending all your money downtown.

That is not the case.

But they were not focused on downtown.

So we're trying to improve the entire city, all of the neighborhoods.

Hopefully, we can get this project off the ground to help you and your neighborhood.

Uh and um I I I consider it a priority that we really need to uh get started on pretty soon.

But I'll give it back to uh Dan for any further questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

Dan Kelly, Ledgewood Hills.

Could this be considered a candidate for a public private partnership?

Are you addressing it or thinking about it?

Yeah, we're open to we're open to that, of course.

Um I don't know who the private partnership is, other than maybe the charter school.

We've we've uh we've we've uh reached out to them, but but yeah, of course, we would we'd be we would be welcome to anything like that.

Uh Matt Tancredi settlement way.

Um I guess I missed something along the way.

What how much is the cost for the roundabout versus a light at Westgate Crossing?

I mean, to me, it seems like wouldn't the easiest thing be to just put a light there versus this roundabout that's gonna cost God only knows how much.

And the second question I have, and I know it's not related to this meeting, but when the mayor talked about the paving projects in the city, I don't understand how a street is chosen to be repaved.

I live on settlement way.

My street got repaved a couple of years ago.

There was nothing wrong with that street.

And it's like, why did you waste money repaving a street that was fine when you drive through Nashua and you hit all these other streets that have potholes?

What's the criteria?

To me, I feel like a lot of our money is being wasted.

Uh thank you.

So I don't have the numbers in front of me in terms of the signal versus the roundabout.

You do.

Yes.

And uh we had the meeting, David Fredette and I and the city officials.

The statement was made, the statement was made that it had to be approved by the area of planning commission for a light, and the craft at that time was 125.

125 hours.

What year was that?

Oh 10 years.

Yeah, it's it's it's more now.

But but yes, the right the roundabout would cost more money initially, that is true.

Um the alternative is if you have a signal, then you usually need uh more lanes, so you so in the and then that's a point that you stop in the roadway, so it ends up yeah, turn lanes and other things.

Um so it's it's there's more there than just the cost comparison, but and it has to be warranted, like I mentioned earlier.

That that location just simply doesn't meet the warrants.

Um in terms of the paving program, uh Mark Saunders uh runs that program with me, but uh um there's uh every every year we go out and we assess the roadways, there's something called the pavement condition index, so it's a score zero to a hundred, hundred being uh perfect roadway, zero being something that's totally impassable.

Um we rate the roadways uh and then we uh we select uh within some a PCI range which roadways uh um to be repaired.

One of the one of the things if if a community just chases the worst roads, if you're just chip going around and we working on just the the the worst roads that you have, um studies have shown that's not the best way to spend your money.

You you want to improve roads, keep the good roads good.

So we are trying to catch some of those roads that haven't deteriorated to the point that you have the massive potholing and that sort of thing.

It's better to catch them.

Uh we can deal with it with a quick uh overlay, get them back to a good condition if they fall into that pothole level.

Um that requires a much more extensive reconstruction.

We either have to grind up the road or we have to uh completely rebuild the road, it's much much more expensive.

So there is uh the the method that we are using is is in the best interest of the city and cost long term in the back here.

Hold on.

Sure.

Uh Andrew Sylvia at Nashville Inklink.

Uh has there been any consideration of a TIFF district for this uh project?

Um I haven't it hasn't been discussed today, but uh we're we're familiar with them.

Well, the what what you're asking about is what's called a tax increment financing district.

This is something that we call it a TIFF TIF.

This is something that is authorized by state law, but this is not a good candidate.

I mean, the way that works is if a TIFF district is defined, then all development which the development which occurs within that district going forward, uh the extra taxes that are generated by that new development go to make improvements within the district.

But for this to work, there has to be development occurring within the defined district.

So we and it takes a long time for that to happen.

So, you know, were we to define West Hollis Street as a TIFF, we'd have to wait for development to occur in the corridor and then use the extra tax money, not the existing level of taxes, but the extra tax money to fund projects within the corridor.

And I think you know, we're not trying to intensely develop West Hollow Street any further.

So you know, we'd be waiting, we could be waiting a long, long time for additional value sufficient to pay for a project such as this.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Yeah, any anything new, anything we didn't uh already cover.

I do want to be respectful of people's time.

Um again, as Mark noted, we'll hang out for a bit here next to the plan if anybody wants to come up and ask anything in detail.

But uh if there are no more questions, I just want to take the opportunity to thank you all again for coming.

Uh this was a good discussion.

Uh every meeting we've had on this quarter has been well attended, and and uh we've had some great input from folks.

So again, I appreciate that.

Um and feel free to reach out to us anytime if you want to discuss something particular in your uh your area of the city.

So uh one more, yeah.

We are currently in the city.

Okay, our parks department is using that right over right over here?

No, the motorcycle next to the iceberg.

Yeah.

Okay, sorry, thank you.

And I just have to throw in Ledge Street really needs some new tar badly in the sidewalk.

Thank you.

Thank you, yeah.

All right, well, thank you everybody.

Snacks in the back.

Come on up.

Thank you.