Danvers Planning Board reviews draft Transportation Needs Assessment, offers feedback; no vote taken

The Danvers Planning Board reviewed a draft Transportation Needs Assessment at its June 2025 meeting and provided staff with comments and requests for more underlying data; planning staff said the report will be finalized with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) and returned to the board for implementation planning.

The draft, a 57-page document with appendices, summarizes public input and data analysis and recommends updating the Complete Streets prioritization plan, developing a downtown parking-management plan, centralizing transportation planning processes, promoting existing transit services and revising the zoning bylaw to encourage sustainable development. Josh Morris, principal planner with the Town of Danvers, told the board the document is a draft and staff “are simply seeking your input, any feedback, and and any comments.”

Board members and members of the public raised questions about how recommendations would be implemented and sequenced. Tim Spiddle asked for clarification on the role of the town’s Transportation Advisory Committee, saying, “Can you say more about the Transportation Advisory Committee, Josh? Like, what does that do currently?” Morris replied the committee is largely town staff from different departments and serves as a forum to evaluate neighborhood safety concerns and prepare recommendations for the select board, which controls road decisions.

Several members pressed for more empirical data to support the survey-driven recommendations. Mike Decoulas asked for information about how far people actually walk and how parking-demand assumptions would affect suburban multifamily projects. Lou (Louis) George, the board chair, and other members said zoning changes that reduce parking should be coordinated with improvements to transit and other infrastructure so reductions do not outpace available alternatives.

A member of the public, town meeting member Noah Sam, urged the board to limit reduced-parking standards to locations where walking transit access is realistic, saying, “The location of the multifamily for reduced parking is really the important part of this. Like, yeah, it makes sense downtown, but if you’re putting a multifamily 3 miles away from downtown or 3 miles away from anything walkable, it doesn’t make sense to reduce their parking to 1 or less.” The board and staff discussed commercial parking excesses, naming Liberty Tree Mall as an example of large, underused commercial lots.

Staff said MAPC is formatting the draft into a polished document with photos and that comments from the board and public will be incorporated. Morris estimated the final report would be ready in “the next month or 2.” He also offered to connect board members to MAPC for access to the underlying survey and data.

Board members asked staff to provide the 2019 Complete Streets prioritization plan and any status updates; Morris said some intersection projects from 2019 sought state funding but were not awarded. The draft also notes that a regional bus route (the 465) was terminated on 2021-03-14; board members discussed whether low preexisting ridership or low awareness contributed to the service’s decline.

The report contains a mix of perception-based survey findings and empirical analysis in its appendices; members requested the raw or more detailed data used for the appendix to better reconcile survey responses and traffic counts when considering zoning and parking changes.

Morris said next steps are to incorporate the board’s feedback, finalize the MAPC-formatted report, and pursue implementation tools including grant applications for specific projects. No formal votes were taken on the Transportation Needs Assessment at the meeting.