Chicopee license committee hears hours of testimony on proposed Pilot travel center at 357 Burnett Road; committee votes deadlock, sends report to full council

The Chicopee License Committee on Dec. 16 heard more than two hours of public testimony and a detailed presentation from the applicant about a proposed Pilot travel center at 357 Burnett Road, then produced a tie at the subcommittee level that will send the matter to the full City Council.

The proposal would re-develop the 357 Burnett Road site with a travel center that the applicant and supporters characterized as a gasoline service and travel center, not a large truck stop. Attorney Tom Murphy, representing owner Dinesh Patel, said the plan received planning-board approval in July 2022 and included traffic and queueing measures intended to keep trucks off Burnett Road. Murphy told the committee that site design provides approximately 100 parking spaces overall, with 25'26 truck spaces and about 75 car spaces, and that a recent traffic impact assessment (late November) found fewer daily trips than a previously proposed mixed-use plan.

"This is not a truck stop, it's a gas station," Murphy said during the applicant presentation, asserting the site would accommodate on-site queueing so trucks would not back onto Burnett Road.

Why it matters: residents who live near the Burnett Road/Mass Pike interchange said the area already copes with heavy tractor-trailer traffic,…