Committee backs short-term bike shoulders as Washington Street coastal resiliency design advances

The Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee voted to support a short-term plan to add 4-foot usable shoulders for bicyclists on Washington Street and to continue schematic design work for coastal resiliency improvements at Francis Street Beach, a project team told the committee.

Leah Hill, the town’s Coastal Resilience Coordinator, and consultants from SCAPE presented two schematic alternatives for the Francis Street site — a curving “dune swoop” and a more rectilinear “beach overlook” — both built around an elevated dune-like feature that would reach about elevation 8 (roughly four feet above the existing roadway) and include a universally accessible 10-foot pathway. Laura Morette, a landscape architect and principal at SCAPE, said the project is in schematic (about 30%) design and that next steps include agency permitting, identifying funding sources and producing a benefit-cost analysis.

The presentation emphasized multimodal goals: reduce coastal flood risk, preserve and improve…