Here’s the challenge for the engineers working on the Route 34 widening project — how do you change the road to provide better traffic flow while, at the same time, transforming it into a quaint, pedestrian-friendly Main Street?
The was the theme of Tuesday night’s meeting in Derby City Hall, where Rick Dunne, executive director of the Valley Council of Governments, and David Elder, the council’s senior regional planner, hosted a question and answer session on the project.
The $10 million project is still in the early design phase. Tuesday’s session was meant to give guidance to engineers from DeCarlo & Doll and Luchs Consulting Engineers. The engineers will probably have a preliminary design for the project completed by the fall.
The engineers are concentrating on the portion of Route 34 — a state road called Main Street, locally — stretching from the Derby-Shelton bridge east toward the Route 8 ramps.
Traffic gets clogged in that area. The road is narrow at parts — and there are concerns about the long-term stability of the road in front of Derby City Hall.
Specific plans were not presented Tuesday night. Instead, general concepts were aired.
They included — keeping the road two lanes, adding a landscaped, pedestrian-friendly median, adding a bicycle land and, possibly, making Olivia, Elizabeth and Minerva streets one-way roads, in an effort to prevent left turns from Route 34 east.
About a dozen members of the public attended the meeting, including Roger Birtwell, a member of the city’s Inland Wetlands Commission.
Birtwell, like several residents, questioned how Route 34 could be rebuilt without it becoming an even busier thoroughfare.
Other residents, such as Arlene Yacobacci and MarkAnthony Izzo, stressed that Route 34 is already a dangerous road to walk across. They urged the engineers to think of pedestrian safety.
Izzo, a former Aldermen, made several suggestions, including shifting the road away from City Hall, so the city could make better use of the land.
Mayor Anthony Staffieri, who was in attendance with Sheila O’Malley, the city’s economic development director, told the engineers the idea is not to have a highway roll through the business district and the city’s much anticipated redevelopment zone.
Instead, the mayor wants wider sidewalks, landscaping and decorative lighting to boost local businesses.
“Those can have a calming effect on traffic,” Staffieri said, using Bethlehem, Pa. as an example. “If we have little shops, a boutique, things outside. It calms the atmosphere.”
Doron Dagan, the president of DeCarlo & Doll, Inc., said he does not envision adding lanes to Main Street.
“I see it as a two-lane road through Derby, with a median, wide sidewalks and with parking,” Dagan said.
It may be possible to rebuild Route 34/Main Street, without tearing down more buildings, Dunne said, depending on which way Derby wants to proceed.
If the project requires eminent domain, that process will be handled by a state agency down the road.
