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Committee weighs five design options for Pleasant Street sidewalks and urges islandwide survey participation
Summary
Staff outlined five alternatives to address narrow sidewalks, mature street trees and parking conflicts on Pleasant Street; $2 million was approved in 2022 and the town is running a public survey through the end of March to set priorities between preserving trees, parking and improving accessibility.
The Committee on Roads and Right-of-Way reviewed design alternatives for pedestrian improvements along Pleasant Street between Silver Street and Main Street, with staff presenting trade-offs between preserving mature street trees, maintaining on‑street parking and improving pedestrian accessibility.
Mike Burns, transportation staff, said $2 million in funding for the corridor was approved at the 2022 annual town meeting and described three focus areas with separate alternatives. "Alternative one is simply to do nothing other than rebuild the sidewalk to address surface issues," Burns said. Other options would remove trees on one side, remove an on‑street parking lane to widen the sidewalk into the roadway, align the sidewalk behind trees into abutter front yards, or shift the sidewalk to the east side requiring some utility pole moves.
Burns said the project goals are to "improve pedestrian accessibility to minimum or best practice standards, maintain historic integrity of the corridor, and improve traffic flow." He asked the committee to help promote an islandwide survey that is open through the end of March; his most recent export showed "a little over two dozen responses," but staff plan a larger social‑media push before the survey closes.
Committee members pressed staff for more detail on trade‑offs. Bill Smith said he drives the route regularly and favored options that preserve large, historic trees. Burns responded that some alternatives preserve street trees but retain parking that continues to create traffic bottlenecks, while removing parking relieves congestion but increases local parking pressure. Staff also noted that the corridor is not on the town's "high injury network," so the primary concern for this project is accessibility rather than crash history.
The committee agreed to review survey results at its April meeting and expects to offer a recommendation to the Select Board in May on a preferred design option based on public priorities—whether the town should prioritize trees, historic character, accessibility or parking. Burns emphasized the survey seeks values and priorities rather than asking respondents to pick a specific design option for each focus area.
The next steps are continued public outreach, committee review of survey outputs in April, and an engineering progression toward a preferred alternative for a May recommendation to the Select Board.
