A Main Street Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

I HAVE a guest piece in the Berkshire Record this week on massDOT's $4.8 million Main Street "Reconstruction" in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The article itself is online at Better! Cities & Towns and at Streetsblog Capitol Hill. Here are some extra photos and captions:

A SIDEWALK on the central block in massDOT's Main Street Reconstruction Project in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Studies have shown that mature trees have economic value for the merchants on retail streets, and the book Principles of Urban Retail says storeowners want passersby to pay attention to their shop windows, not the sidewalks. But the massDOT plan will cut down the existing trees and use formulaic changes to make the sidewalks fancier. The result will be a place where fewer people want to walk and stop.

There is a larger copy of the photo here.


A VIEW of the the central block in massDOT's Main Street Reconstruction Project in Great Barrington, Massachusetts while the Bradford Pear trees were in bloom last April. The wide-angle photo highlights the width of the street, although it is less noticeable to drivers and to pedestrians on the sheltered sidewalks. An old photo of Main Street(below) shows trees tall enough to form a canopy over the street. The current trees were chosen by massDOT in the 1960s. The traditional way to introduce new trees would be to phase them in over time, but massDOT and their consultants prefer trees which never grow very large, to be cut down every 20 to 30 years for new street work.

There is a larger copy of the photo here.

AN EXISTING conditions photo of Main Street in Great Barrington, Massachusetts above a CAD rendering showing changes proposed by massDOT as of May 3, 2012. Without the mature trees, the space between the buildings on Main Street is too wide to be a comfortable pedestrian space, and the sidewalks have lost their tree canopy and shelter from the sun. Studies have shown that the brick crosswalks are less visible and therefore more dangerous at night and in the rain than traditional striped crossings. The brick crosswalks and the grass plantings draw attention to themselves rather than the beauty of the street. Another before and after view can be seen on the town website.

The Town of Great Barrington has larger versions on their website, along with another pair showing Before & After at the other end of the block, by Rubiner's.

AN HISTORIC photo of Main Street in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. There is a larger version here, along with archival information.

After the jump, an historic view of South Main Street and another sidwalk view.

A POSTCARD showing South Main Street before it became a modern auto sewer. There is archival information on Wikipedia.

There is a larger version here.

John Massengale, "The MassDOT Chainsaw Massacre," Better! Cities & Towns
John Massengale, "MassDOT Mistake, How Not To Rebuild Main Street," Streetsblog Capitol Hill