Canton Street Neighborhood Traffic Calming

BETA has been working in the Town of Westwood, Massachusetts to develop a traffic calming plan designed to mitigate the traffic impact associated with University Station, a 4.5 million square foot mixed use development adjacent to the neighborhood. Resident concerns included an increase in cut-through traffic, heavy vehicle traffic, potential future increase in traffic volume, and higher vehicle speeds. BETA worked closely with the Town and neighborhood residents during the process.

Construction was completed in August of 2016 and BETA was retained to perform a follow-up study. The BETA team presented the results of this study at a very successful public meeting attended by close to 60 residents and Town personnel. The Town was incredibly happy with the final outcome as confirmed by Todd Korchin, Westwood Director of Public Works. “We just wanted to send a special thank you out to you and your team for the hard work and efforts throughout this project,” he said. “The past couple of years haven’t been the easiest and we truly appreciate all your help and assistance with this project.”

The traffic calming area includes gateway design, speed humps, 11 intersection locations traffic calming devices with raised medians, landscape features, imprint and texture pavements, and 10 mid-block median island locations. In addition, the work included providing vertical and sloped granite curb with streetscape features to add to aesthetics. One of the neighborhood roads is a Scenic Road and care was taken during the design to maintain the “scenic nature” of the roadway, while obtaining the goal of calming traffic. BETA’s work also included extensive neighborhood meetings and posting plan materials to the Town website for resident reference.

Given the years of delicate neighborhood consensus building effort put in by the project team, it was rewarding to hear applause and positive reactions from the crowd. The success of this project is a direct result of extensive and close working relationships with the neighborhoods involved.