Lighting a ‘dark spot’ of Northampton’s Main Street

Central Mass Signal electricians Mathew Barbieri and Andrew Cram work on their lights installation in downtown Northampton.. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Mike Church, Mathew Barbieri and Andrew Cram, electricians with Central Mass Signal, install lights under the Northampton Bikeway bridge that crosses over Main Street in Northampton. The lights are decorative and can change colors depending on the season. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

Staff Writer

Published: 11-29-2023 3:05 PM

Modified: 11-29-2023 5:31 PM

Northampton MA

NORTHAMPTON — New lighting is going up on the two bridges that span one end of Main Street as part of a city initiative to help improve visibility at night and encourage visitors to walk further down to explore an area of downtown that features restaurants, antique shops and more.

The new lights, built by the city in partnership with Central Mass Signal LLC out of Northborough for a cost of around $310,000, will be installed in two phases, first at the New Haven Northampton Canal Greenway rail trail bridge and then on the neighboring rail bridge.

The first set of lights on the rail trail bridge, being installed this week, will be able to change color and illumination depending on the time of year or season.

The second set of lights will be installed next spring on the parallel railroad bridge where the Amtrak train currently runs through Northampton.

“Because of supply chain issues, a lot of materials were backlogged, and so we’ve just been sort of in this waiting pattern,” said Carolyn Misch, the city’s director of Planning & Sustainability. “We had to break it into phases because it was more expensive than we originally thought. In the meantime however, we were able to secure funding for phase two, and also get permission from MassDOT to put lights on the rail bridge because they control it.”

Though not officially a part of the city’s planned Picture Main Street project, Misch said that the lighting installations were planned to complement the proposed redesign as part of the city’s plan to help business recover from the effects of the pandemic.

“There’s been this ongoing conversation with business owners on the other side of the bridge, at the intersection of Market, Hawley and Bridge streets about making site improvements,” Misch said. “This has always been, literally, the dark spot on Main Street under these bridges. And so there is a sense that some people were reticent to keep walking down Main Street to the intersection.”

The rail trail on the bridge stretches approximately 84 miles from Northampton to New Haven, Connecticut. The original rail line was originally completed in 1863, although fell out of service in the 1990s before being eventually converted into a biking trail.

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