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Parking-and-Traffic
Study Ready to Roll

By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
4/29/10
The long-awaited East Milton Square parking-and-traffic study is now only a few signatures from getting under way.

The Business and Citizen Advisory Committee last week considered three proposals for the study, part of a $1 million federal earmark given to Milton in 2005.

Town Planner Bill Clark instructed the committee to review each firm’s proposal and select one. That meeting was scheduled for April 28, after the Times’ press deadline.

The chosen firm will work under a $150,000 contract for the town, with a 12-month timeline. The study is to include analysis of past and present use, current conditions in the square, future potential use and demand, and previous study data, as well as recommendations for the development of a “cost-effective, preferred investment strategy for any recommended improvements.”

The $150,000 will cover the first phase of an improvement plan for the square, which has been plagued by traffic and parking issues since the construction of the Southeast Expressway divided the district in the 1950s. Clark said the remainder of the grant will allow the town to bring the recommendations of phase one to fruition to the extent possible.

“What is the vision for the square? What do people want it look like? Sustainability means you have to change something sometimes,” Clark said during the committee’s meeting April 20. “It’s [about] getting a vision that everyone in town can buy into.”

Clark said he sent out a Request for Proposals to a dozen different traffic and engineering firms and heard back from three of them. Those that responded – Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Tetra Tech Rizzo and Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. – are all based in the area.

Vanasse Hangen Brustlin also has other offices throughout New England, as well as New York, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Florida.

Howard/Stein-Hudson and Tetra Tech have recent experience working with the town, the former having been tapped by the Planning Board to conduct a peer review of a traffic study tied to a redevelopment plan for Temple Shalom that was ultimately rejected by Town Meeting. Bob Daylor, a resident who works for Tetra Tech, was called on two years ago to put together potential land-development scenarios for the Gov. Stoughton property off Canton Avenue.

Clark did not recommend one firm over another, saying all three are highly qualified.

“All these groups have vast knowledge in this kind of field,” he said.

According to Clark, Howard/Stein was the only company that sent representatives to observe the square before submitting a proposal.

He described Tetra Tech as “multi-disciplined,” pointing especially to its work with The Cecil Group, another Boston company, in visioning and design work.

Clark pointed out that the Vanasse firm is not connected to another company familiar to the town, Vanasse & Associates, the company that was hired by Brockton-based Coffman Realty to study traffic impacts of the Temple redevelopment plan.

He said the same man founded both companies but now only works for the latter.