WESTBOROUGH — The state Department of Transportation has begun planning for a major new project to help alleviate congestion in the MetroWest region at the interchanges between 495 and the Massachusetts Turnpike and between 495 and Rte. 9.
At a meeting today with a variety of property owners and developers, area employers, regional and local officials held at the offices of the 495/Metrowest Partnership, department representatives discussed the preliminary results of their study of the problem spots in the area and some proposed fixes.
The DOT examined growth trends in population and real estate development to develop projections for likely traffic impacts though 2035. Even under a moderate growth scenario — with the populations of Westborough and Southborough increasing about 15 to 20 percent, and existing vacant and planned commercial space filled — traffic will be bumper to bumper beginning more than a mile before either of the interchanges throughout the rush hour by 2035, the department estimates.
The portions of the highways covered by the study already see hundreds of accidents per year, with many rear-end collisions caused by people abruptly slowing as traffic queues up to enter the exit ramps.
"We recognize the importance of access to this area because of the existing employment here and in the future," said Bill Schwartz of the Planners Collaborative Transportation Group, who consulted on the project. "All the results that we saw lend themselves to make improvements now and for the future."
The DOT is currently considering several proposals to remediate the situation, including minor fixes like improving signage and cutting back vegetation to improve visibility. Major construction proposals include building flyovers at some of the interchanges and eliminating the existing median on 495 to allow for expanded exit and entrance lanes. The department is also considering a variety of mass transit options to help reduce some of the traffic.
It plans to conduct several planning meetings with regional stakeholders before revealing a final plan for the area at the end of the year. But even preliminary proposals revealed today produced mixed reactions. Some employers, for example, warned that a prior employer-funded bus/shuttle system created to serve Westborough’s office parks had fizzled due to low ridership in the early 1990s, while others warned that younger employees of the "Millennial" generation were more anti-car than previous generations and likely to value just such efforts.
Officials from Westborough and state Rep. Carolyn Dykema (D-Holliston) proposed opening up an existing transit service road to freight traffic to cut down on the number of trucks going though the turnpike tolls.
