WILLIAMSBURG — Plans are moving ahead to build an 8-foot-wide shared-use bicycle and pedestrian pathway on Haydenville’s South Main Street, despite an ongoing dispute between project planners and residents who live along the road.

The construction will create the first section of the long-planned Mill River Greenway, an initiative to create a trail connection between Northampton and Williamsburg. The Williamsburg Board of Selectmen voted 2-1 at its June 13 meeting to send the Mill River Greenway Committee’s plans to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) for approval and contracting.

South Main Street resident Gerry Shattuck called the board’s vote a “disheartening decision” that he claims went against the wishes of many neighborhood residents. Shattuck and others gathered last Wednesday to voice their displeasure and to demonstrate with props how the trail’s construction would affect their neighborhood.

Gaby Immerman, chair of the Mill River Greenway Committee, said the committee is “anguished over the way that this has become antagonistic, rather than a small community working together for the best outcome for everyone.”

“We absolutely care and are concerned about the neighbors being at peace with the outcome. We have a difference of opinion about what is safer,” Immerman added.

The plan

The Mill River Greenway will create a trail connection between Northampton and Williamsburg that will eventually connect to the Mass Central Rail Trail (MCRT), one day creating a continuous trail to Boston. The current sidewalk on South Main Street runs about a third of a mile from the Northampton bike trail to the Main Street bridge in Haydenville, and the 8-foot-wide shared-use path is planned for construction in place of the current 5-foot-wide sidewalk.

Some residents are concerned that the shared-use path could create safety issues and limit neighborhood walkability.

“They keep talking about it like it’s just going to be a wider sidewalk, but it’s a mixed-use bicycle path with two-way bike traffic,” Shattuck said. “As far as we can tell, this is an unprecedented incident of actually taking away an amenity, because it’s not going to be a sidewalk anymore.”

Immerman said that, from the perspective of the committee, “South Main Street is not losing a sidewalk; it is receiving a wider, more accommodating pathway aimed at serving local residents and the MCRT and Mill River Greenway users.”

Among residents’ concerns are fears that the shared-use path could complicate parking and create dangerous situations for drivers on the street’s east side, who will have to cross the path to get to and from their homes. As planned, the shared-use path will cross directly in front of eight driveways on South Main Street.

“Cars backing out of driveways have sightline issues — they can’t see very far down the path that bicycles will be on,” said Jim Weigang, a resident of South Main Street who attended the rally.

“To lose our sidewalk to an avenue where we have to constantly be concerned about bicycles coming up behind us is a serious loss for us.”

Immerman said the committee believes its proposal “will create a safer condition, not a less-safe condition.”

“Currently, these neighbors are backing out or pulling into their driveways across a sidewalk. That means, by definition, they are looking in both directions now when they exit their driveways,” Immerman said. “They will still need to look in both directions when they enter and exit their driveways in the future — they will just be crossing an 8-foot sidewalk instead of a 5-foot sidewalk.”

Lynda Gauthier, a Northampton bicyclist who frequently rides on South Main Street and attended the rally, advocated for a more accessible design that would separate bicyclists from pedestrians and accommodate larger vehicles like adaptive and electric bikes.

“Bike infrastructure normally separates pedestrians from cycles so that people don’t get hurt and killed,” Gauthier said.

Immerman noted that state law allows bicycles on sidewalks. “We feel that a wider sidewalk will be safer than a narrow sidewalk, because there will be both bikers and walkers on it,” she said.

Impact of other projects

Multiple other nearby construction projects in the works could impact South Main Street’s traffic levels in coming years. MassDOT has moved ahead with plans to replace two bridges over the Mill River in Haydenville, rebuild the road between the bridges, and reconstruct a nearby stretch of Route 9.

The Route 9 project, slated to begin construction in 2028, includes plans to build a 10-foot-wide, 1.9-mile-long shared-use path from the Main Street Bridge in Haydenville to the center of Williamsburg. The path on South Main Street would connect the Northampton bike trail to the new shared-use path, creating a way for bicyclists to avoid riding on that stretch of highway.

To date, the project has received $1.85 million in grants and donations, $65,000 from the town, and has been awarded $2.39 million in state Treasury bond funds.

Immerman said more bikes are going to be using the Mass Central Rail Trail and wanting to connect to downtown Williamsburg because of the Mill River Greenway, and a safe connection between the shared-use paths is needed.

“The connector, as we’ve proposed it, is accommodating future bicycle and walking traffic, which we feel confident will increase,” she said.

Weigang said some residents felt that they were not included in the planning process.

“They’ll try to suggest that the neighbors had been sought out and included in this. It’s not true,” he said. “They had many forums that were them basically cheerleading the plan they had already come up with. But the time to include neighbors and voters is in the early stages of planning.”

Select Board Chair William Sayre and Immerman said the board and the Greenway Committee held many public meetings to hear resident feedback before sending plans to MassDOT.

“The Greenway Committee has conducted over a dozen public forums in Haydenville during the last 14 years aimed at showing drawings as they developed, archiving submitted suggestions or questions, and responding to individual abutters at the forums,” Immerman said.

‘Bicycle boulevard’

The Mill River Greenway Committee contracted with engineering company Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. (VHB) to create its construction plans, which include a 24-foot road bed, the 8-foot-wide shared-use path, a 5-foot grass buffer area, and a granite curb. The plans call for a 20 mph speed limit — lowered from the current 25 — and three speed tables. The shared-use path would begin a foot from residential property lines on South Main Street.

Instead of the shared-use path, Shattuck, Weigang, and other opposed residents advocate for transforming the street into a “bicycle boulevard” — a low-speed road open to both cars and bikes, with a pedestrian sidewalk. Plans they developed consist of a 28-foot road bed with a 20 mph speed limit, speed bumps, visible share-the-road arrows and bike-friendly signs, and a concrete, ADA-accessible, 5-foot-wide sidewalk.

Efforts were made to reach a compromise agreement respectful to both the committee’s and the neighborhood representatives’ proposals. Immerman referred to the plan as the “build both” proposal and said it would widen the sidewalk to 8 feet, include speed bumps and speed limit signs, and make the road safer for bikes.

Sayre said that the board and committee had essentially agreed to many elements of the compromise, but were unable to agree on a few points, which led to the residents pulling out of the deal.

Weigang said, “An attempt was made to come up with a compromise proposal, but because the town was unwilling to give the street the full bicycle boulevard treatment, it basically collapsed.”

MassDOT classifies lower South Main Street — the portion of the road on which the shared-use path is proposed — as an “urban arterial roadway,” and states that such roadways should separate vehicle and bicycle traffic. Citing that directive, VHB has stated that it will not design a bicycle boulevard.

Some residents claim the street’s low traffic volume and speed limit justify a design exception that would allow bicycle boulevard elements.

Updated petition

In September 2023, residents opposed to the shared-use path circulated a petition with a few dozen signatures urging the Greenway Committee to reconsider construction. Organizers say they have now gathered over 130 signatures on a newer petition against the shared-use path, which they plan to send to the committee, board, and state representatives soon.

Immerman said the committee, made up of local residents charged by the Select Board to develop a plan, hired an experienced professional engineering firm, which has presented a proposed design that has now been approved by the Select Board.

“I respect and appreciate that the neighbors are the people who are the most impacted by it, but I also feel that I trust professional engineers whose opinion is that the proposal designed is the safest cross section in the smallest footprint,” she said.

Williamsburg Town Administrator Nick Caccamo said the town hopes to bid the shared-use path project for construction by fall of this year, and expects the project to be under contract by Dec. 31.