Residents Urge Select Board to Reject MassDOT Mountain Street Redesign Plan

WILLIAMSBURG -- July 12, 2021, Williamsburg residents urged the Select Board to reject a $13 million MassDOT reconstruction of Mountain Street and push instead for a scaled-back alternative estimated at $6 million to $8 million. A Finance Committee member who lives on the road presented a detailed challenge to MassDOT's Alternative 5 design, which she said would widen lanes, straighten curves, install guard rails, and damage wetlands, all without adequate public input since surveyors first appeared on the street in 2017. She cited 15 years of police crash data showing 13 accidents, none involving cyclists or pedestrians and none resulting in injuries, calling MassDOT's doubled-crash-rate claim "overstated." Resident Rebecca Brooks, whose family has lived at 67 Mountain Street for roughly a century, told the board, "We are turning Mountain Street into a highway." Residents asked the board to support Alternative 4, which would preserve the road's existing footprint and speed-reducing curves, ahead of a MassDOT comment period expected in August.