NORTHAMPTON — A petition calling for a halt of a planned redesign of the city’s Main Street has collected over 1,000 signatures since it went live two weeks ago, but the mayor said this week she has no intention of stopping its advancement.

“I stand firmly behind the Picture Main Street project. This critical initiative has been shaped by extensive public input in dozens of well-attended public meetings,” Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra said in a statement. “The accident data shows that our downtown is currently one of the state’s most dangerous areas for accidents. This project focuses on making our streets safer for everyone.”

The petition is the latest development in an ongoing debate over whether the redesign will benefit the city’s downtown economy.

The Picture Main Street project, done in coordination with the state Department of Transportation, would stretch across nearly a half-mile length of Main Street, beginning west of the intersection of Elm and West streets next to Smith College to the intersection of Market and Hawley streets near the rail trail bridge that spans Main.

The project calls for creating three 11-foot-wide vehicle travel lanes, with one of those lanes designated for turning. Plans also call for expanded sidewalks, removal of more than a third of on-street parking, the addition of bike lanes in both directions, and planting new trees throughout the downtown area. Angled parking would be eliminated on one side of the road and replaced with only parallel parking, while the other side would have a mix of angled and parallel parking.

The petition, posted on change.org by group called Save Northampton, says the project will cause traffic congestion and harm local businesses with the disruption caused by construction. The $21 million project is expected to begin in 2025 and take three years to complete.

“A growing number of business owners and residents with deep roots in the community are concerned that the city is permitting this to happen despite the obvious threat to local businesses during and after the construction process,” the petition states.

Since the petition first was posted online on Aug. 14, it had garnered more than 1,030 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.

City officials have ardently supported the redesign of Main Street, saying it is necessary to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and allow for greater walkability downtown. A public hearing in April, held remotely by MassDOT, noted the affected area of Main Street made the top 5% of crash clusters in the state for pedestrian and bicycle accidents.

The redesign’s other goals are to revitalize the downtown economy and help meet climate change initiatives. In an interview with the Gazette three weeks ago, Carolyn Misch, the director of planning and sustainability for Northampton, said, “There’s been a whole economic shift that’s been happening for the last 20 years as retail has gone online, and has made it really harder for downtowns to succeed. We want to make [downtown] a place that’s flexible and diverse, and that could roll with these changes that have already been happening, that will continue to happen in the future, and create this outdoor living room space for the community.”

The petition also states that there are several issues that have yet to be addressed by the city and MassDOT, such as traffic congestion and emergency vehicle access.

John DiBartolo, a personal injury lawyer with an office downtown and a supporter of the petition, said he questions whether the design would improve pedestrian safety, because, he says, the bike lanes would be placed between parked cars and the sidewalk, potentially obscuring the view of cyclists for vehicles making right turns.

“I think the proposed design creates a lot of contact points with cyclists and cars,” he said. “It’s not so much I oppose it as I would prefer to see a trial run, because you can make some tweaks and move lanes if need be before you spend the $20 million.”

Judy Herrell, owner of Herrell’s ice cream shop downtown, supports the petition and encourages people to sign it. In an interview, she said she wasn’t necessarily opposed to alterations to Main Street, but that there wasn’t enough information to go on for the city to make such a drastic permanent change.

“Stop working on this until we have data,” she said. “I am not afraid of change. I am afraid of change that isn’t vetted.”

At the same time, many businesses and residents have voiced their support for the proposed changes. A group called Main Street for Everyone, which supports the redesign, lists more than 50 businesses on or near Main Street, such as Dirty Truth, Pita Pockets and State Street Fruit Store, that back the redesign.

“We regard Main Street as our great public and economic center and view its redesign as a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” the group’s website says.

Misch noted that other areas of the Pioneer Valley, such as along Route 9 in Hadley, had been reduced from four to three lanes and had even higher traffic volume than what passes through Northampton’s Main Street.

“This is well under the threshold that MassDOT needs to decrease the number of lanes,” she said.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.

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