By Jonathan Comey, Neighb News Correspondent
Road safety takes everyone’s cooperation, and the town of Acushnet is hoping that the power of crowdsourcing will lead to safer streets.
On Tuesday, 1/27/26, as the area dug out from the season’s first major snowstorm, a representative from the town and a national consulting firm held an event at the town library to give the people a voice in identifying trouble spots.
In support of the Acushnet Complete Streets Prioritization Plan, posterboard maps of the town geography were laid out on tables and easels, some featuring notes in ink, some on colorful sticky notes, where folks had identified what they saw as the trouble areas.
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- Nicole Rogers of Boston-based GPI consultants makes a note on a large map identifying possible traffic/pedestrian trouble areas in Acushnet during a public information event held on 1/27/26 to get public input for the Complete Streets Prioritization Plan. Photo by Jonathan Comey.
Town planner Victoria Alfaro said the idea has been on people’s minds since a fatal bike accident on South Main Street a few years ago, and the opportunity to fact-find with grant money through the Mass STOP program was a good way to start seeking solutions.
“It’s a good opportunity to utilize this info and pinpoint areas where we can make our streets safer for all users,” she said.
Several people came into the library over the course of the day while many others had already responded in the online form, which will remain open until mid-February. Most of the notes centered around three areas: the three-way stop near Town Hall, Middle Road, and Lake Street, but they were also scattered in lesser trafficked areas.
With almost 100 responses by the end of the day and more expected, there will be some good data to work with. Project manager Nicole Rogers of Boston-based Greenman-Pedersen, Inc., was recently part of a similar undertaking in Acton, where they used activity heat maps, crash history and poll results to produce the best overview of problem areas possible.
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- L-R: Consultant Nicole Rogers, of Boston-based GPI consultants, and Acushnet Town Planner, Victoria Alfaro, look over a map of Acushnet used to help residents point out traffic/pedestrian trouble areas during a public information event held on 1/27/26 to get public input for the Complete Streets Prioritization Plan. Photo by Jonathan Comey.
“We’ll have the data, and we have some evaluation metrics that are also in that survey as well,” Rogers she said. “Asking people, ‘Once we kind of have this list, how would you like to see them prioritized?’ In the end, it will create a list ranking of projects, which we hand over to the town. Then they can take this as their roadmap to improve walking and biking throughout the town.”
Both emphasized that nothing binding will come from this study, which will be completed in May, and Alfaro noted that taking part in this grant will also open more opportunity for grant money to assist in helping should further action be approved by the town.
“Hopefully, when it comes time to either ask for funding or to go apply for funding for a project, people are familiar with what we’re doing and we have that community support, which is a big part of planning,” she said. “You need to have people think it’s worth pursuing, and having a say in it is important to that.”
The online poll can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/AcushnetCSPP.
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- Sticky notes and handwritten notes on a map identify possible traffic/pedestrian trouble areas in Acushnet during a public information event held on 1/27/26 to get public input for the Complete Streets Prioritization Plan. Photo by Jonathan Comey.
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