Somerville's Beacon Street Reconstruction Project Starts Monday

Image via the City of Somerville

SOMERVILLE, MA - The City of Somerville will spend the next two years performing a complete overhaul of Beacon Street starting Monday.

Crews will dig all the way down to the base layer and completely replace the roadway, the City of Somerville reported. The new road will be far less likely to pot hole and will have new sidewalks and crosswalks.

"This project has been a long time coming and while the next two years of construction will cause occasional inconveniences, the end product will be a better corridor for cars, pedestrians, and cyclists," the Town of Somerville wrote in a social media post.

Other improvements include:

• Traffic and pedestrian signal upgrades between Oxford St. and the Cambridge City line.
• New curbing and other drainage upgrades
• Tree canopy and landscaping, with more than 200 new tree plantings in high-quality planter boxes.
• A separated bicycle facility along some portions of the corridor to enhanced protection for cyclists by physically separating bicyclists from vehicle traffic.

Somerville was ranked number three in the country and number one in the region for bike commuter traffic by the League of American Bicyclists in 2015, according to the city's report.

Bike commuters make up 7.8 percent of Somerville traffic and semi-annual bike and pedestrian counts have shown Beacon Street to be the city's most heavily used corridor. The road see over 500 bicyclists during peak hours, according to the report. The installation of separated bike lanes will help prevent injury in the busy corridor.

"The City encourages cyclists to use alternative routes during the construction. A recommended detour route has been prepared in partnership between the Somerville Traffic & Parking Department, the Somerville Police Department, and the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee. These routes will be marked with vertical signage," the city wrote in the report.

See the eastbound bicycle detour from Porter Square to Inman Square>>>

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Some parking will be removed from the street to help accommodate its busy flow of traffic. Street parking on the even side of Beacon Street, between Oxford Street and Museum Street will be preserved but street parking on the odd side between Oxford and Museum will be removed.

On Museum Street and Park Street, on-street parking will be preserved on the odd side but removed on the even side.

Street parking will be preserved on both sides between Washington Street and Dickinson Street.

" Based on current use levels, a parking study determined that enough parking capacity would remain in the area despite this reduction in spaces," the City of Somerville wrote in the report.

See more information about the project>>>