The portion of South Main St. in contention lies between Fort Hill Road and Bridge Street. This section is 700 feet long (1/8th of a mile) with 15 homes along it, 8 of which are on the eastern/sidewalk side of the street. It is a distinctly neighborhood road: straight and level with no intersections, currently a 25 mph speed limit, and low traffic levels (less than one vehicle per minute in each direction at peak times). The street is traveled by numerous bicyclists daily and has been for decades without any record of accident between bicycles and motor vehicles.
Driveway Danger
Replacing our sidewalk with a bike path is a bad match for this location. Homes on the eastern side of South Main sit between the street and the Mill River, and are built up close to the street. There are no spacious lawns in front of people’s homes; front-yard fences and garden plantings extend right to the edge of the sidewalk.
Vinyl scale mockup of proposed bike path, grass buffer, and curb
As a result of this close construction, driveways on the east side of the street have very limited visibility up and down the sidewalk. This is not a problem for pedestrian traffic, because people walking can stop in mere inches when they see a car pulling out. It’s a different matter for bicycles, which may travel 25-50 feet or more in the time it takes to react and come to a stop. And for many of the driveways along the street, cyclists will not even be able to see that there’s a car backing up until it’s on the bike path dead ahead of them. Collisions between bikes and cars pulling out of driveways are entirely predictable. Having a bike path cross 11 driveways, many of them blind, in a short 700-foot stretch is an irresponsibly bad design specifically warned about in bicycle facility manuals from MassDOT and other transportation agencies.
Pedestrian Danger
Although bicyclists in Massachusetts are allowed to ride on sidewalks when necessary in the interest of safety, cyclists do not at present ride on our sidewalk because South Main St., with its low traffic volume, is a comfortable and obviously safe street to ride on. The street is used daily by numerous bicyclists and has been for many decades with no record of accidents between bicycles and motor vehicles. Our sidewalk has always been a relaxed, hospitable path for pedestrian use. The proposed bike path will change that: with an existing rail trail to the south and a planned bike path along Route 9 to the north, practically every cyclist traveling along South Main Street will wind up riding on what was formerly our sidewalk. Our sidewalk becoming a section of the Mass Central Rail Trail will take away something that our neighborhood, like many others, has long enjoyed: a calm, safe place for people to walk, to walk dogs, and to socialize with neighbors.
Everyone walking on the new bike path will have to stay alert for bicycles coming up behind them and be sure to quickly do what it takes to avoid a collision. Anyone listening to headphones, and older citizens with hearing difficulties will be at risk of not even knowing that a collision danger is imminent. Young children playing on the sidewalk, darting out to grab a ball, or senior citizens who cannot move fast enough are at risk of being struck by a bicyclist. With a width of only 8 feet, narrower than the 10-foot width of other bike paths, the new path leaves a bare minimum of space for pedestrians to dodge bicycles. And with the rapidly growing popularity of e-bikes, which are heavier and faster, the risks to pedestrians will only increase over time.
Walking on a designated bike path is different than walking on a sidewalk. There are rules to follow, things you must understand and be prepared and able to do. It is less relaxed, more stressful, and there are risks involved. People choose whether they want to walk on bike paths; if they are not comfortable doing so, they stick to sidewalks. The residents of South Main St. will have no such choice, it’ll be the bike path or nothing in front of their homes.
Less Safe
In carefully examining the proposed bike path, it is clear that it was designed by people lacking experience and expertise in bicycle transportation engineering: It looks good on paper from a landscape design perspective but is seriously deficient from a bicycling safety and usage standpoint. Everywhere we look, the designs in bicycle facility manuals provide separate accommodations for pedestrians and bicyclists in built-up areas like neighborhoods. Bike transportation engineers understand the importance of keeping bicycles and pedestrians separate, for reasons of safety and to provide comfortable levels of service to both groups.The South Main St. Greenway designers evidently thought that getting bicycles off the road would eliminate safety problems. They clearly had not read MassDOT bike facility guidelines which warn against using sidewalks as bike paths and identify the exact problems with bike paths crossing driveways that the residents have been pointing out. Nowhere else on the Mass Central Rail Trail can we find any section where the rail trail has replaced a pedestrian sidewalk. The Greenway design also narrows the vehicular roadway of South Main and adds a curb to the eastern side of the street, two changes that make the street itself less safe and appealing for cyclists to ride on.
The Mill River Greenway committee has latched on to the idea that it’s important to have “continuity” between the rail trail to the south and the proposed bike path along Route 9 to Williamsburg. They say that cyclists might be confused if there was no dedicated bike path between these two sections. This is one reason why the neighborhood wants the street clearly labeled with bike route signs and sharrow markings on the roadway. If the Greenway committee had studied bicycle transportation engineering manuals, they would have learned that it is not uncommon for a bicycle facility to change from one type to another depending on the context of the area it’s passing through.
Corridors that effectively accommodate bicyclists often combine multiple facility types, each type
being used where appropriate. For example, a shared use path can connect to a bicycle boulevard
to create a continuous corridor. A corridor may start with bike lanes, travel along a bicycle
boulevard, and then transition back to bike lanes.
— AASHTO Guide for Development of Bicycle Facilities
Process Failure
The Williamsburg Mill River Greenway committee has been working on this project for the past 12 years, but for 10 of those years the plan was to have bicycles share the road with cars on South Main Street — a design the neighborhood enthusiastically supported. Something different emerged in 2022, though, and the new bikes-on-the-sidewalk plan was designed, engineered and submitted to MassDOT for funding approval before anyone on the street, except one resident from whom easements were needed, was notified that a huge change had been made. This from a committee whose mission statement says they will achieve their goals by “Focusing and encouraging local enthusiasm, input and participation in the project” and “Respectfully working with local property owners.”We only learned about the new plan in April 2023 when notices were posted on telephone poles in the neighborhood, and we have been studying bicycle facility manuals, learning about regulations and guidelines, and objecting to the Greenway’s new plans ever since. Our objections have been met with a stone wall of refusal to change the basic design, justified with misinformation, deceptions and outright lies. The neighborhood’s alternative proposal — to improve roadway safety and formalize bikes sharing the road with cars — is what is recommended for streets like ours by bicycle facility design manuals from MassDOT, the Federal Highway Administration, the National Association of City Transportation Officials and other agencies.
Unlike the members of the select board and the Mill River Greenway committee, we residents of South Main St. live here, and we are not going away! We are the ones who will have to deal directly with the unsafe consequences of the bike path design, day after day. The select board may have passed its vote, but we are not going to lie down and quietly take having a bike path shoved up our sidewalk against our will — particularly when an alternative is available, and that alternative is what’s recommended for our street by bicycle facility manuals from multiple transportation agencies.
Lawn sign campaign — click image above.
Additional Reading
Forum Presentation — our talk at the April 2024 Greenway forum, a good general introduction to the neighborhood’s concerns and proposal
Bike Boulevard for South Main St. — Greenway advocates claim that South Main St. isn’t allowed to be a bike boulevard. This essay explains why a bicycle boulevard is an appropriate and important facility for our street.
- Bike Boulevards and Arterial Roads – a deep dive into MassDOT regulations and guidelines as they apply to South Main St.
- Regulations and Guidelines for Shared-Use Paths – what state and federal agencies have to say about the proposed bike path
South Main St. Photos — take a look at our neighborhood
In the News — newspaper articles and social media postings about the neighborhood and our efforts to get the town to build a bicycle facility which is safe for cyclists and pedestrians alike
Responses to Arguments — our responses to arguments in favor of the sidewalk bike path
Further Reading — still more pages on various topics
Contact us at: southmain01039@gmail.com
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The material below is the original main page of the web site, from Dec. 2023, a time when MassDOT planned to extend the sidewalk bike path all the way up South Main St. to the library end of the street.
Plans to replace a neighborhood sidewalk in Haydenville with an 8' wide bicycle+pedestrian path are opposed by nearly all residents of the street, who wish instead to convert the street to a bicycle boulevard, with bicycles traveling in the street. They point out that this is what is recommended by bikeway planning manuals from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration and other agencies.
The Williamsburg Mill River Greenway Committee is charged with creating a walkable, bikeable connection between Williamsburg, MA and the village of Haydenville, two miles away. Route 9 connects the towns, but that road is so narrow in places that you are taking your life in your hands if you ride a bike along it. The Greenway committee plans to build a shared-use bike path along Rt. 9, between the highway and the Mill River.To the south of Haydenville, the Mass. Central Rail Trail ends about 1/2 mile from the center of town. The Greenway committee wants to put a bike path along South Main St. between the rail trail and the start of the Rt. 9 bike path. One-quarter mile of this connection (in red below) runs through a quiet, thickly-settled, long-established neighborhood.
- It would take away our sidewalk, a place where pedestrians can safely, casually walk
without concern about bicycles — in particular, without having to stay alert for bicycles coming up behind them.
A sidewalk is a place where children can play, ride tricycles and scooters, and where parents say, “Stay on the sidewalk!”
A roadway is a place where you have to keep to the right, and look both ways before stepping onto it, to avoid possibly being
hit — and a bike path, shared-use path, whatever you call it, is a roadway.
More on why we want to
Save
Our Sidewalk. Our concerns will be compounded when the future Rt. 9 bike path leads to increased levels of
bicycle and pedestrian traffic; see Future-Proofing.
- There are fences, bushes and various plantings immediately adjacent to where the
proposed bike path would go, and there are 19 driveways and handicap ramps
along the 1/4 mile stretch. Most residents backing out of their
driveways would not be able to see bicycles approaching (now from either
direction) along the path, and bicyclists would have trouble seeing cars entering the path in time to stop.
The combination of these sight-line issues creates a serious safety problem for
bicyclists and a liability issue for residents — issues that do not exist
at present with bicycles riding on the road.
If houses on South Main St. were set back from the sidewalk with open lawns in front, sight lines would not be an issue, but that’s not how our neighborhood is laid out.
Read more about our
Safety
Concerns, and take a look at driveway sight lines in
Photos
Along South Main Street.
- The bike path plan eliminates parking on the river side of South Main St. Above Bridge St., residents regularly park on this side of the street in front of their homes, and parking in this section FILLS UP at times, on both sides of the street, during events at local businesses. Eliminating half the parking would leave the neighborhood with insufficient parking and create problems for three businesses — the Hampshire Masonic Lodge, the Williamsburg Funeral Home, and Chuck’s Radio appliance repair — which rely on river-side parking for handicap access and loading purposes. At the lower end of the street, at 29 South Main, the bike path would take away driveway parking for which the homeowners have no substitute, and leave them unable to park on the street in front of their home.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration and many other transportation agencies have guidelines for building various types of bicycle accommodations, and a shared-use path is NOT what is recommended for a street having South Main St.’s traffic level — shared-use paths are prescribed for streets having seven times as much traffic as South Main.
Orange star indicates South Main Street’s traffic volume and (proposed) speed limit. From the Federal Highway Administration’s Bikeway Selection Guide (2019), p. 23.
The Greenway plan for South Main St. removes stress-free passage for pedestrians, creates safety issues around driveways, takes away well-used parking spaces, and transforms a quiet village neighborhood into one with bicycles zipping by directly in front of people’s homes. It is an inappropriate and problematic solution for a “problem” that does not exist — and is a project that comes with a price tag of more than $2 million, money the state will borrow to pay for it.
The Neighborhood’s Proposal: A Bicycle Boulevard
Though we have no hesitancy about bicycling on South Main St., we recognize that bike safety along the street could be enhanced. Both the Greenway committee and the neighborhood propose reducing the speed limit to 20 mph and installing multiple speed humps to keep cars from speeding. In addition, we propose widening the the roadway between Fort Hill Rd. and Bridge St. to the same 14-foot lane widths found in the upper part of the street. The details of our proposal can be found here: Neighborhood Proposal.
These changes, together with sharrow bicycle markings on the street and appropriate signage, are elements of what is referred to as a “bicycle boulevard” or “neighborhood greenway”: changes that shift the priority on a street from car-centric to bicycle-primary. With these changes, the 1/4-mile section of South Main St. between Fort Hill Rd. and the future Rt. 9 bike path will in effect become a bikeway where cars are allowed to carefully navigate.
Unfamiliar with bicycle boulevards? We were too. Read what we’ve learned about them here: Bicycle Boulevards. In reference materials from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration and other agencies, a bicycle boulevard is the recommended means of accommodating bicycle traffic on a street with South Main’s speed limit and traffic volume. Bicycle boulevards are commonly used to connect disjoint segments of dedicated bike paths — exactly the purpose a South Main boulevard would serve. And bike boulevards are regarded as “All Ages & Abilities Bicycle Facilities.” (See the Bicycle Boulevards page for more information about these statements.)
We believe the neighborhood’s plan:
- Follows current best-practice recommendations from MassDOT, the Federal Highway Administration and other agencies.
- Achieves the Mill River Greenway Initiative’s stated goal of broadly accessible, safe connectivity — including safety for pedestrians.
- Creates an entire bike-friendly street vs. a segregated bike path, benefitting even cyclists who would eschew a relatively narrow bike path and ride in the street.
- Is able to smoothly handle substantial increases in bicycle traffic, levels that would cause safety problems for pedestrians and cyclists alike on a relatively narrow 8 foot wide shared-use path.
- Preserves frequently-used and important on-street parking.
- Keeps bicycles at safe distances from driveways, and keeps them arriving in the same direction as cars.
- Lowers the cost, saving taxpayer dollars or allowing funds to be diverted to other transportation projects.
- Preserves the historic rural village character of the community — a fundamental goal of neighbors and abutters and a stated goal of the Town Of Williamsburg:
- Is favored by the overwhelming majority of neighbors and abutters.
“We want to improve Williamsburg, but we don’t want to lose what we value.”
Williamsburg wants to maintain the character and the culture that make it so desirable to both long-term residents and newcomers. Williamsburg is proud of who and what it is. In a world of placelessness, Williamsburg is a beloved place whose identity is rooted in a slow changing landscape and culture.
— Williamsburg Healthy Aging & Community Design, pg. 37-38
The South Main St. neighborhood looks forward to being able to bicycle between Haydenville and Williamsburg, and we welcome bicycles traveling between the rail trail and future Route 9 bike path. We simply want our quiet street, rather than our sidewalk, to support that traffic — we want to see the street made safer for bicycles, rather than our sidewalk made less safe for pedestrians, and bicycles encouraged to ride directly in front of our driveways.
An Opportunity for Western Mass.
One compelling motivation for building bicycle accommodations is environmental: getting people, whenever possible, to ride bikes to a destination instead of driving there in a car. This is the norm in many cities in Europe, and it’s a worthy goal to strive for in this country as well. Dedicated bike paths are one component of making this happen, but they are primarily for long-distance and recreational travel. Of equal or greater importance is accommodation for shorter distances, on vastly more roadways. If bicycles are to significantly displace automobiles in an area, a network of bike-friendly travel-ways is needed. This is unlikely to happen by replacing existing sidewalks with shared-use paths, to the ire and resistance of abutters; it will come about by adjusting selected roadways to be friendly to bicycles. In every neighborhood, a fraction of the streets should be clearly marked and speed-calmed to become bicycle boulevards. Riders should be able to get from any point A to point B in town with most of the riding being along bike-friendly streets, as is the case in Portland, Oregon:
Parallel green lines are bike boulevards; solid green lines are shared roadways; blue lines are streets with bike lanes; purple lines are multi-use paths. See full map and web page.
South Main Street in Haydenville is an excellent candidate for a model bicycle boulevard, setting an example for the rest of the Western Mass. to take notice of and consider following in other neighborhoods. Absence of a shared-use path along South Main St. should not be seen as a failure, a failure to construct an uninterrupted bike path from Williamsburg to points east, but as an opportunity: a chance to demonstrate something eminently practical that could lead to vastly more environmental benefits than replacing one neighborhood sidewalk with a shared-use path would provide.
Further Reading
Bicycle Boulevards
How the neighborhood wants to accommodate bicycles on our street.
Responses to Arguments
Our responses to arguments in favor of the shared-use path.
Traffic Volume on South Main St.
Low traffic volume is what makes South Main suitable for use as a bike boulevard. How much traffic is there, and how much of it is trucks?
Bicyclist Preferences
Even the least-capable cyclists are happy to ride on bicycle boulevards, particularly if they’ve ridden on them themselves.
Future-Proofing
Numerous agencies warn about mixing pedestrians and bicyclists, particularly on paths as narrow as the proposed 8-foot shared-use path.
Safety Concerns
Running a bike path directly in front of homes and blind driveways leads to accidents waiting to happen.
Roadside Shared-Use Paths
Examples of what strike us as appropriate shared-use paths along roadways: streets with a lot more traffic than South Main Street.
Timeline
Ten years of work on the Williamsburg-Haydenville bike path, but plans to replace the sidewalk on South Main with a shared-use path first appeared in 2022.
The neighborhood’s petition from September 2023
(Some of the issues, such as moving power lines across the street, have been removed from the Greenway committee’s proposal and are no longer concerns.)
A map showing where the petition signers live/work/own property
Nearly every house along the street.
Fuss & O’Neill Report from 2015
This study by a transportation civil engineering company proposed solutions that seem eminently sensible to us in the neighborhood. They wrote:
Accordingly, the most feasible alternative appears to be to separate the bikers from the pedestrians along this section. For pedestrians this can be accomplished by utilizing the existing sidewalk, where available, and extending it by means of a new sidewalk to the Mill River. Bikers can use South Main Street as a bike route, and share it with existing traffic.
Fuss & O’Neill’s proposals are vastly less expensive than the Greenway’s plan — roughly one-sixth as much. And if their recommendations had been followed, bicycle and pedestrian accommodations might be in place today, having met with neighborhood support rather than resistance.What about the section of South Main below the red line on the map?
There is currently no sidewalk on South Main St. between Fort Hill Rd. and the rail trail, so new accommodation for pedestrians is definitely needed. If the owner of the property below Fort Hill refuses to grant an easement to the town, we suggest following the original 2015 recommendations of Fuss & O’Neill, namely constructing a pedestrian sidewalk on the western side of the street and having the bicycle boulevard start at the concrete bridge near the rail trail dismount. This would save a great deal of money, a bike path on the eastern side having to be built out over a slope to the river. It would also prevent the removal of more than a dozen trees, preserve parking used by the owner of 29 S. Main, and provide a consistent travel path for bicylists along the full length of South Main Street.
South Main St. looking north above Bridge St., showing typical daytime roadside parking.
Contact us at southmain01039@gmail.com