Feb. 22, 2001

Route 1 project discussed

By Tom Glynn
Staff writer

A $33 million project to widen Route 1 from Sharon to Wrentham and rebuild its intersection with Interstate 95 is scheduled to begin in 2004 and take two years.

As outlined by an engineer at a public hearing in Wrentham last week, the main work in Walpole will consist of widening the highway to accommodate six-foot shoulders between the high-speed lanes and the Jersey barriers in the median.

Those barriers were installed in 1996 to prevent accidents involving vehicles making left turns across oncoming traffic in the stretch of Route 1 then called Death Valley.

At Thursday night’s public hearing in Wrentham, Frank Bracaglia of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin said the planned work is a completion of what was done quickly in 1996 in response to fatal accidents.

As required by state and federal regulations, the new project will replace wetlands that it disrupts. One of the sites chosen to create a wetland is land owned by the Town of Walpole alongside Route 1 South near the Foxboro line. The town has tried to sell that property to raise revenue.

In addition to installing the safety buffers between the travel lanes and median barrier, the project will create uniform 10-foot wide outside shoulders along the eight miles of Route 1 it covers. The concrete median barrier, which now ends in Foxboro, will be extended all the way to the Route 1-Interstate 495 interchange in Wrentham.

At the hearing, Carl Balduf, Walpole assistant town engineer told the state to be aware that the project will impact School Meadow Brook at the headwater of much of the town’s water supply.

The plan calls for building a retaining wall in that area and improving storm drainage to provide better protection than now, Bracaglia said.

The work outlined in Wrentham is separate from the project now under way to better handle traffic from the new and bigger Patriots stadium in Foxboro, Bracaglia said. That work is being done with $70 million in infrastructure funding the state is providing for the stadium.

Planning for the $33 million project was just about finished when the Patriots work came along, he said.

The biggest piece of the new project is the reconstruction of the Route 1/I-95 interchange in Sharon on the Walpole line. The plan eliminates the weave on Route 1 South between traffic exiting and entering I-95 South.

The plan calls for an additional ramp to I-95 South, from Old Post Road on the east (Sharon) side of Route 1. At the hearing, a Sharon resident said the new ramp will add to traffic on Old Post Road.

The plan calls for widening Old Post Road’s northwest corner for traffic turning right off Route 1 South. But no change is planned for the southwest corner for traffic from Walpole turning right onto Route 1 South.

The state will hold additional public hearings as planning advances. A copy of the environmental report for the project is available at the Walpole Public Library.

Feb. 2, 2001

Public meeting on Route 1 plan

By Tom Glynn
Staff writer

The Massachusetts Highway Department will hold a public meeting Thursday, Feb. 15, on its plan to rebuild the Interstate 95-Route 1 interchange in Sharon on the Walpole line and upgrade eight miles of Route 1 between that interchange and Route 495 in Wrentham.

To cost as much as $50 million, the project has long been planned to improve safety. It is not, the state’s consultants emphasize, a part of the work ordered by the Legislature to improve highway access for the new Foxboro stadium.

The state’s consultants note that the 95/1 interchange has some serious shortcomings, notably in the connections between I-95 South and Route 1 South. Traffic exiting I-95 South crisscrosses vehicles headed from Route 1 to I-95 South.

In redesigning the interchange to eliminate that weaving, the consultants came up with easier ways for motorists to reverse directions on Route 1. And an additional lane segment is to be added on the right side of Route 1 North to make it easier to get onto 95 North. That feature would benefit Patriots fans headed north after a game.

The plan calls for one additional ramp – a connector to I-95 South from Old Post Road on the Sharon side of Route 1. That connection would eliminate the need for motorists to head north into the interchange proper in order to enter 95 South. Consultants estimate the new ramp would significantly reduce traffic in the interchange.

From Walpole through Foxboro to Route 495 in Wrentham, the rest of the project would augment $23 million worth of safety work done in 1995 and 1996, when concrete Jersey barriers were installed down the median of Route 1 from Old Post Road to North Street in Foxboro. The barriers were installed to prevent left hand turns across oncoming traffic, a maneuver that led to many severe accidents.

The new work will include adding six-foot-wide shoulders between the travel lanes and the Jersey barriers, which will require some widening of the highway. Route 1 will remain two lanes in each direction.

The consultants predict major commercial and retail development along the eight-mile stretch in the next two decades. Peak one-hour traffic on Route 1, now 2,000 vehicles in the peak direction at the interchange, will grow to 2,600 vehicles by 2020, they predict.

The consultants note that there will be one sizable piece of work within the 95/1 interchange that is to be done not by their project but by the stadium’s. (The Legislature authorized $70 million in public money for infrastructure improvements for the new stadium.)

As part of the traffic plan for the bigger stadium with its bigger parking lots, a wrong-way lane will be set up after major stadium events to bring northbound traffic up Route 1 to I-95. As part of the stadium project, a new ramp will be built to get that wrong-way lane onto I-95 North.

This week, the state advertised a $10 million contract for a start on the stadium roadwork that will be concentrated in Foxboro. That work is scheduled to begin this spring, according to the state.

The stadium, now under construction, is scheduled to be in use next year.

There is no timetable in the consultants’ report on the 95/1 interchange plans. That project is more complex than the stadium roadwork and does not have a dedicated funding source.

The Feb. 15 public meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. in the Vogel School, 120 Taunton St., Wrentham.

Copyright 2007 The Walpole Times