Sidewalk Plan Nears Final Design

HARWICH – Despite objections from neighbors over the relocation of utility poles, a plan is nearly complete to install 3,300 feet of sidewalk connecting the Harwich Port business district with Saquatucket Harbor.

“We’re almost there,” said MassDOT Project Manager Thomas Currier, who updated the select board on the project Monday. The town project has been in the planning stages for years and aims to add a sidewalk to Route 28 between the harbor and an existing sidewalk near Snow Inn Road. Funded under the regional Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP), the estimated $3 million job is nearing the 100 percent design and final specifications stage and will be reviewed by the state and put out to bid over the summer.

DPW Director Lincoln Hooper said the town’s engineering firms have designed the sidewalk to meet state standards, “and once it’s accepted in its entirety, MassDOT bids it, awards it, and sees it through construction,” he said. The town pays for the design and the state funds the construction through the TIP, and ultimately will own the sidewalk. The partnership is a good way for the town “to leverage limited resources” to get the job done, Hooper said. Another example was the 2012 reconstruction of Route 137, a $6 million project that required a relatively small investment by the town.

The town is designing the Harwich Port sidewalk on behalf of MassDOT, and the agency is “very grateful that the town’s doing it,” Currier said. “Now you have a discontinuous, noncompliant sidewalk that lots of people would like to use,” he said. He acknowledged the town’s “sizable investment in Saquatucket Harbor” as well as the adjacent Outer Cape Health Services facility that would benefit from pedestrian access.

The project faces unique challenges, including the narrow road layout and the need to cross Cold Brook on a curving section of road. Along approximately two-thirds of a mile of the state road, crews will install a single six-foot concrete and asphalt sidewalk separated from traffic by granite curbing. The town’s conservation commission recently issued an order of conditions requiring drainage upgrades with better stormwater treatment. In strategic locations, special infiltration chambers will be installed underneath the sidewalk to capture and filter runoff “that would otherwise go untreated out to Saquatucket Harbor,” Currier said.

“I have never seen DOT grant this type of a project,” Hooper said. As a rule, state highway projects need to comply with federal Complete Streets standards, which require sidewalks on both sides of the road and a shared multi-use path. Such a plan would have required the road to be widened significantly. This project, which includes just a single sidewalk, is “about as minimalist as one could be,” Hooper said. He credited Pam Haznar, MassDOT’s newly retired district project development engineer, for advocating for the proposal.

“If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have this project,” he said.

“She worked a miracle somehow,” Currier added. “The federal government doesn’t let us build one [sidewalk],” but the plan is the best one possible for this stretch of road, he said.

In January, nearby abutters with historic homes voiced concerns about plans to relocate utility poles to accommodate the sidewalk and to potentially require the removal of some trees. The town has received correspondence from an attorney hired by those property owners.

Town Administrator Joseph Powers said he and Hooper met with the landowners to explain the need for the work.

“We’re aware of these objections, however I think it’s been well articulated the benefit of the project overall,” he said.

“You can’t move one pole without affecting the others,” Currier said. “In most instances, we try whenever possible...to put the pole not in front of somebody’s front door but on the property line,” he said. Some property owners near Snow Inn Road will also be asked to grant an aerial easement because utility wires will pass over a corner of their land, Currier added.

“This has been discussed forever,” select board member Donald Howell said. With regards to the current plan, “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” he said. Howell thanked the design team for bringing the plans this far. “It’s really about the good of the town,” Howell said. “You folks have really bent an awful lot of rules” to make the project happen, he noted.

Barring any delays caused by litigation or other problems, the project should be ready to be advertised for bids in late August, and construction is expected to take place in the spring of 2025, the following fall and the spring of 2026, avoiding peak tourist season.