N.H. DOT updates Hooksett on $20 million Route 3 widening, residents and businesses raise access and property concerns

New Hampshire Department of Transportation officials gave the Hooksett Town Council an update March 12 on the Route 3 (Hooksett Road) improvement project between Alice Avenue and Martins Ferry Road, saying the preferred plan would widen the highway to five lanes, add sidewalks and bicycle shoulders, install new traffic signals at major intersections and require substantial right-of-way work.

The project “is about filling the gap between the improvements to the south of Alice Avenue and then to match into those that are previously built to the north of Martins Ferry Road,” DOT presenter Dave Smith said, describing a roughly 1.4-mile corridor with an estimated construction cost “approximately $20,000,000 currently including inflation but excluding right of way.”

DOT and its design consultant described the current preferred alternative as two travel lanes in each direction with a center median or center turn lane, five-foot paved shoulders for bicyclists, six-foot sidewalks on both sides south of Mammoth Road and on the west side north of Mammoth, and raised median islands at selected locations to reduce unsafe turning movements. The plan replaces earlier consideration of roundabouts with traffic signals at Alice Avenue, Mammoth Road…