Washington Street Survey and Engineering Design Project
The consulting firm Environmental Partners, has been selected for the Washington Street Complete Streets survey and engineering design project. This project is expected to commence with the Right-of-Way survey expecting to begin on May 8, 2023 and likely completing work on May 31st. While there will be no public meeting to kick off the survey work, we want to notify Duxbury residents, particularly those who live or work along Washington Street that this survey work will be taking place and to be aware of the survey crews who will be progressing along the street over the next month.
Scope of Work
Environmental Partner's subcontractor Merrill Engineers and Land Surveyors will be commencing their field survey work along the Washington Street corridor in May. Most of their work will take place within the public right-of-way up to private property lines. Three things should be kept in mind:
- For property owners who have improvements that are located within the formal public right-of-way (ROW) such as parking areas, landscaping, etc., it should be known that the ROW is public land and that such improvements are not barred from surveying or protected from public construction.
- Also, the surveyors may also need to access the boundary area between the public and private realms and may need to insert a bound (iron rod or similar) to demark the ROW line.
- For the public-at-large. we would ask that the public to proceed with extra caution when traveling along Washington Street during the surveying period for the safety of the field crew given that the workers may be in residents’ driveways or near the edge of roadway.
Why Establish a ROW Line?
The Town is looking to establish a formal right-of-way on a street that has not had that done previously. This will serve multiple purposes including determining what is the Town’s responsibility for maintenance, indemnification, emergency services, and for other public purposes. Further, the establishment of public ROW provides a scope of geography for future transportation projects—which will likely include future sidewalk projects as established in the publicly vetted Complete Streets program. In this case, after the surveying is complete and the ROW established, the consultants will be commencing the engineering design of one sidewalk segment along the Washington Street corridor--between the Bluefish River Bridge and Fort Hill Lane. More on future sidewalk projects below.
Complete Streets Sidewalk Projects on Washington Street
In 2021, the Town of Duxbury adopted, and the MassDOT approved, a Complete Streets Prioritization Plan (see THIS PAGE for more Complete Streets information). As a part of the Plan, nearly 30 projects were identified and approved for future consideration throughout the town. A total of seven projects alone are related to Washington Street including six intended to develop sidewalks along the corridor. Currently this 2021 Plan is being updated to include additional segments along Washington Street to address the entire corridor. The first segment intended to be designed and constructed is the aforementioned Bluefish River Bridge to Fort Hill Lane segment. Funds for the survey work and the engineering design of this segment were approved by 2022 Annual Town Meeting as Article 17.
More Information
If you have any specific questions for the Town or consultant team, or wish to make a comment, please send them to Christopher Ryan, Planning Director, at cryan@duxbury-ma.gov and an answer will be forthcoming ASAP. Or call Mr. Ryan at 781-934-1100 x.5475 with general questions. Finally, the Town will have a project working group made up of Town officials, volunteers from boards, and several residents of Washington Street. This working group may hold one or more public sessions prior to the enginnering work commencing.