MEMORANDUM

11 Beacon Street, Suite 1010 | Boston, Massachusetts 02108 | 617.482.7080 www.hshassoc.com Page 1

To: Ryan McNeill Date: October 3, 2018 MassDOT

From: Nate Lash HSH Project No.: 2015188 Howard Stein Hudson

Subject: MassDOT I-495/I-90 Interchange Improvements Project #607977 Stakeholder Briefing-MassDOT Research and Materials Laboratory Meeting Notes of October 3, 2018

Overview On October 3, 2018, MassDOT Highway Division, along with representatives from the consultant team associated with the I-495/I-90 Interchange Improvements Project, held a stakeholder briefing to provide an update on the project progress and to introduce four proposals for the design of the new interchange as well as gather their input. Of these proposals, three originated during the project’s conceptualization phase and were documented in its Environmental Notification Form. One is a new concept evolved during the design process by the current project team.

MassDOT Project Manager Ryan McNeill began the meeting and provided an overview of the project process. A presentation by Joe Cahill of HNTB and Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis of Howard Stein Hudson outlined background and history of the project; Project Purpose & Need including safety, operations, freight movement, and economic development; and public outreach to date. Joe Grilli, HNTB, presented the traffic and environmental data collection that the project team conducted over the year and Jonathan Kapust, also of HNTB, presented the four interchange alternatives and discussed how each alternative was evaluated using 26 different parameters including those related to safety, mobility, environmental considerations, and construction challenges.

The discussion focused on evaluating the alternative concept designs proposed for the interchange, their environmental impacts, and ideas for addressing emergency services challenges. Steve Slaman, Hopkinton Fire Department, expressed a desire for emergency access gates and additional traffic cameras due to the challenges faced by emergency responders when using limited access highways.

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The project team agreed to investigate the possibility once the final design was selected. All those in attendance agreed that C-2 appeared to be the preferable of the four design alternatives.

Agenda I. Welcome & Opening Remarks ................................................................................................... 2

II. Presentation .................................................................................................................................. 3 III. Discussion .................................................................................................................................... 10

Detailed Meeting Minutes1 Welcome & Opening Remarks C: Ryan McNeill, MassDOT: Thank you both for coming tonight. This is Round 2 of 3 rounds of

public and stakeholder meetings that we are going to have on this project up through the next six months or so. Steve, I know you came to one of the first ones.

Q: Ryan McNeill: Have you both participated in one of our previous meetings?

A: Steve Slaman: Yes.

A: Jeannie Hebert: No, I believe I had a schedule conflict and was out of town.

C: Ryan McNeill: Ok. Round 1 was to talk about the existing conditions at the interchange, what the problems are, and why we are doing the project. Tonight’s Round 2 is to talk about all the work we’ve done in the last nine to twelve months or so, present the alternatives we are considering, and show you the analysis we’ve been working on. We’ve done a pretty deep dive into data analysis and collection that will help us, and the various departments and administration make an educated decision. The third round of meetings will be this winter after we collect feedback from you folks and from another stakeholder meeting tomorrow which we expect to be better attended. We will also have four public meetings over the next two weeks or so. We’ll gather all of that input as well as the alternative analysis we’ve done to help the administration make a decision.

1 Herein “C” stands for comment, “Q” for question and “A” for answer. For a list of attendees, please see Appendix 1.

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Tonight’s meeting we’ll introduce the project team, we have a considerable number of people here from the team tonight. We’re going to talk about the project purpose and need, the basis of why we are doing the project. We’ll talk about data collection we’ve been doing over the last year. We are going to show you the concepts and alternatives, up here on the boards and in the presentation, and then we’ll also show you the alternatives analysis matrix which includes our measures of effectiveness. We’re here to update you on the project status, show you the data, and review the alternatives.

The intent of this round is to hear what you like or don’t like on what we’re presenting from your stand point or from that of the folks you are representing. The secretary has made it clear that while she wants all the technical information about the project, she wants to hear from stakeholders, the public, environmental agencies, environmental advocates’ legislative input to help her decide. There are only two of you tonight, so this is a bit informal. If you have any questions about what you hear or see, if you want some clarification, if you want us to speed up or slow down, just let us know.

Presentation C: Ryan McNeill: Here are the project partners: MassDOT in partnership with the Federal

Highway Administration. I thought we were going to have someone from Federal Highway Administration tonight.

C: Nate Cabral-Curtis: I think he is coming tomorrow; we are expecting many more folks at tomorrow’s meeting.

C: Ryan McNeill: And the design consultants led by HNTB and including Tetra Tech, Howard Stein Hudson, HMMH, and Green International.

You folks are familiar with the project area? Here at I-90 east and west bound and I-495 north and south bound. We have a couple of complications here. We have the train tracks, the Route 9 interchange, the DCR land, the country club, and Roosevelt farms nearby. We won’t spend more time talking about the project area, because you both are familiar with it. And now, I will turn it over to Joe Cahill.

C: Joe Cahill: Thanks Ryan. As you know, I-495 and I-90 are two very important pieces of infrastructure. Both highways are critical to the state and to the region in terms of mobility. They both have high congestion and high crash rates. The project purpose is to improve safety and operational efficiency at the system interchange of these two nationally and regionally

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significant interstate highways. On the screen you see the concise purpose statement that shows what we’re trying to solve with this project.

By improving the geometric deficiencies and eliminating the weaving movements, we will achieve the goals of reducing crashes in the project area, reducing the congestion that we see often throughout the interchange, and reducing that queuing that usually spills onto the mainlines of I-90 and I-495 which is particularly problematic. It will also reduce travel time through the interchange, especially on high-volume movements.

I’m going to turn it over to Joe Grilli who will go into some of the background of what we found in the traffic and environmental data collection.

C: Joe Grilli: Thanks Joe. In fall 2017 we collected new traffic data using automatic traffic recorders and traffic information from the toll gantries. All this data collection was done after construction of the all-electronic tolling system. These counts were done after that. We then went on to use that data to analyze traffic conditions. On 495 we went all the way down to the South Main Street interchange and up to the Route 9 interchange.

Here is the existing traffic information. A couple of things to point out. During the morning, the peak period is 7:15 AM – 8:15 AM and in the afternoon it is 4:45 PM – 5:45 PM. We gather origin destination data through Bluetooth tracking which helps us measure the amount of traffic going on each of the ramps. At present, the interchange does not accommodate the existing traffic and it will not accommodate future traffic levels which have been forecasted. We compared traffic data from 2017 to data taken in 2011 and we saw some ups and downs. We saw that 495 went up and I-90 went down a little bit but one of the things we noticed is that the peak period seems to be spreading and occurs for a longer period of time. We noticed through analysis, and quite frankly, observation of traffic conditions, that queuing from the toll plaza areas to get on and off the ramps, spills onto the mainline highways. We also saw that some weaving is still a problem in several areas within the interchange. These alternative designs will all eliminate those issues.

This interchange heat map made with a software called Vissim and shows congestion conditions on many ramps and main stretches of 495 and 90 during peak hours.

MassDOT engaged the Central Transportation Planning Staff office to forecast 2040 traffic volumes. These graphs represent those traffic forecasts and some of the movements are predicted to grow by up to 30%.

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This is also a high crash location. There were about 460 crashes in a five-year period between 2011 and 2015. Some of the crash rates experience here on 495 and in the interchange are over double the statewide average. Crash clusters are located throughout the interchange and I’m going to show you those. This graphic shows the higher crash locations in the interchange area. Orange line shows how they extend onto the main highway and it shows in yellow nonstandard acceleration and deceleration lanes.

I’ll switch gears a bit to show the environmental aspects. We did a large inventory of wetlands, the ACEC was mapped, Atlantic white cedars studied, and many other kinds of environmental studies because as you probably know, this is a pretty sensitive environmental area. I’ll show you one graphic to show how the interchange area is surrounded by wetlands or other ACEC or environmentally sensitive features such as the nearby rivers.

With that, I’ll hand it over to Nate to talk about public involvement.

C: Nate Cabral-Curtis: Thank you, Joe. This is the calendar of things we’ve done to date regarding public outreach. We had two public information meetings last November and then calmed down for the month of December before going hard for the month of January with the stakeholder meetings. We had four of those here in this building, here in this room. We also did a Wikimap, if you were at one of those meetings, you’ve seen the screenshot of what they look like. That opened in the summer 2017 and was open, collecting data, through spring 2018. The great thing about this is there are frequently times when your technical evaluations, all the things Joe spoke about, and then what people tell you are the problems, their lived experiences, are worlds apart. In this case, what we’ve heard in comments, the briefings, and the Wikimap is remarkably consistent with what the technical evaluation shows, and they focus on driving and environmental quality and preservation. No surprises.

So, the key themes. Driving. Drivers, truck and auto, reported congestion on the on and off ramps back onto the main lines. “Merging is dangerous.” “People drive aggressively.” “Traffic diverts onto local roads to avoid the interchange.” “Trucks have problems merging.” Everything you saw in the traffic study slides. With the environment, the interchange is surrounded by wetlands and people are concerned about them. Water level and flow need to be addressed. Wildlife is in the region and crosses the interchange.

This is the WikiMap and you can see this yellow cluster of car comments. That’s the que waiting to get onto the main line. Here’s that weave and here are trucks saying they have a hard time making their way through. Nothing in here is a surprise and it all matches the technical data we have. When we present this to the general public, I think people will feel heard.

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You can see how all the comments break out. Again, no surprises. Almost 2/3 of the comments are about driving. I would just note that these here are taken directly from comments people left on the map and again, they map very closely to what we found in the technical evaluations.

What were the comments about? Congestion. Traffic safety. Dangerous merging. Speeding. There’s nothing here that comes across as a shock which is good. We have a good alignment between what the public is saying and with what the engineers are saying which you don’t always get.

At this point, Jonathan Kapust will cover the actual concepts.

C: Jonathan Kapust: Thank you. From the Environmental Notification Form, three alternatives had risen to the top and were selected to move forward onto the next round of development, 14-4, 14-5, and 22-3. We started with those three alternatives and moved them forward to a more advanced level of design. During that process, a fourth alternative, C-2, was developed by the project team. All four alternatives were further designed and then we took those and evaluated them against the project purpose and need.

I’ll run through the alternatives first starting with some common improvements among all the alternatives. They all reconstruct the I-495 bridge over I-90. They all reconstruct the I-495 bridge over the CSX and MBTA line. They all reconstruct the I-90 bridge over the CSX and MBTA line. They all reconstruct Fruit Street bridge over I-495. One of the things that came out of the refinement process is we added an auxiliary lane from the on ramps coming onto I-495 northbound all the way up the Route 9. There’s a lot of friction with the weaving traffic coming on from I-90 and getting off at Route 9. Adding an additional lane to connect those two ramps between those tightly spaced interchanges helps to eliminate that.

The main improvement with 14-4 is the addition of twin direct-connect ramps from I-90 westbound to I-495 Southbound, which enters in the median and continues farther south, and the parallel ramp to it, is I-495 Northbound to I-90 eastbound. These ramps pick up the heaviest movements. The rest of the interchange is improved geometrically as much as possible and weaving is removed within the toll plaza.

14-5 takes that a step farther. Instead of continuing to use the loop, I-495 has a new ramp just north of the MBTA line. Because the loop is removed, we are able to make a direct connection to I-90 westbound for I-495 northbound and southbound traffic.

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22-3 takes it even another step farther, providing direct connections for every movement except for the southbound/eastbound loop ramp. This one has quite a few bridges as you would expect having direct connections with each movement.

C-2 was developed looking at 14-4, 14-5, and 22-3 and what could be improved with those alternatives. The main difference is that instead of a flyover coming in the median, the westbound/southbound ramp comes through the toll plaza on its own flyover. With its own ramp coming in, traffic will move faster than it does on the loop that we have today. This allows us to move 495 northbound traffic further in toward the median so there is less impact to adjacent properties. Any questions on any of that before I move on?

After we finalized the alternatives, we evaluated them against the project purpose: to improve the safety and operations for all traffic movements. We found from a safety perspective, 14-4 does not improve on movements from 495 to 90. All other 3 designs do improve on predicted crashes for all traffic movements. As these loop ramps are removed, the predicted crash rate drops. There is a direct correlation between predicted crashes and removing those loop ramps.

C: Ryan McNeill: You can see how in 14-4, when we keep all the loop ramps, safety does not improve on all. It’s an alternative that a lot of folks have seen, and we’ve brought through the process, but we have determined it does not fit the project purpose. We are presenting it, but we will not be analyzing it further. The department is not interested in building an alternative that does not improve safety.

C: Jonathan Kapust: From this point on we will be discussing the other three alternatives, 14-5, 22-3, and C-2, as they relate to measures of effectiveness. We went through an exhaustive effort to define the parameters that best analyze the interchange and contrast the alternatives. We ended up with 26 parameters across 7 categories: Safety, Mobility & Operations, Environmental Considerations, Construction Challenges (how to build a project efficiently), Economic Impacts, System Preservation (referring to the facilities themselves and their sustainability), and Costs.

C: Ryan McNeill: These measures of effectiveness are all in one big matrix and we’ve broken it up into seven slides. This is the basis for how we make the decision. We could all talk about them for hours and hours, which we have, but we’re going to run through them.

C: Jonathan Kapust: And if either of you would like to learn more about any of them, we can discuss each one further.

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In the safety category, we’ve talked about geometric crashes and predicted crashes, weaving movements, low-speed curves, the loop ramps, left-side entrances, and visibility – seeing where you’re going to go. The ones that really stand out here are geometric crashes and left side entrances. You can see the differences between 22-3 and C-2.

On Mobility and Operations, all the alternatives make things much, much better. This refers to congestions, rush hour, gridlock, etc. From a congestion perspective, 38 segments of the road are approaching or exceeding capacity at no-build and all the alternatives knock that down by at least 90%. From delay and hours traveled, we see dramatic across the board improvements.

Q: Steve Slaman: Does mobility and operations cover how snowplows get through the area?

A: Jonathan Kapust: I think that would come under System Preservation.

Q: Steve Slaman: Does that come into this somewhere?

A: Jonathan Kapust: It is not necessarily shown in this. I think that’s a discussion for whichever design does get selected, so we make sure that gets incorporated.

C: Steve Slaman: I didn’t see it included so I’m kind of curious.

C: Ryan McNeill: That is more of a design-specific thing. You asked the question last time and, before I became involved, the team met with you and other emergency responders. It was passed on that you and other EMS folks will want access and the ability to transit between interchanges.

C: Jonathan Kapust: I understand the existing toll plaza makes it easy for you to get between interchanges and make U-turns. That is going to be more of a challenge under any of these schemes.

C: Ryan McNeill: We know from a site visit we did that we wanted to go from here to here and had to go twelve miles west to the next interchange to turn around. I think that’s probably too much.

C: Steve Slaman: I think limited access is something we need to evaluate and get managed in projects - that’s all.

C: Jonathan Kapust: Great. Thanks. Regarding environmental considerations, the things to point out are the permanent wetland impacts. You can see that 14-5 and C-2 are kind of similar. 22-3 has considerably more impact to environmental areas and protections. As you can see, these are

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wetlands here and here and by removing the loop ramps in C-2 we can keep the wetlands in these areas. Two of these alternatives have Article 97 property impacts and two do not. Any questions?

Construction challenges, they all take a similar amount of time to construct. They differ in the complexity of construction. The more bridges over water and rail, the height of ramps, and the number of bridges will all impact the construction duration. One of the nice things of not having the flyover that comes into the median is ability to make more direct ramps which results in less impact to the flow for drivers.

Economic impacts correlate directly to traffic and congestion. User costs to freight is very important at this interchange. Half of all the freight in Massachusetts goes through this interchange. Improving in this is beneficial for everyone and a value outcome of this project. Because 14-5 takes longer to build, there is more cost to the user of this interchange during construction.

C: Jeannie Hebert: I’m liking C-2.

C: Ryan McNeill: That’s why we’re here. To hear your comments, opinions, and thoughts.

C: Jonathan Kapust: System Preservation. I’ll just say that by building this, we’re not spending more money over a 75-year period than if we just maintained the existing system. The general life-span costs of these alternatives are similar.

C: Arthur Frost: From the MassDOT Worcester District Office, one of the things we want to do is make sure we are doing as much as we can with this project so that we don’t have to come back and fix it later. We want a road that is serviceable that we can use for many years. We want something that will last and not require further delays down the road.

C: Ryan McNeill: I’ve got an example of that here with this bridge on I-90 going over CSX. It’s been there a long time. We’re looking at some structures like this now to see if it is worth looking at to replace now so that it doesn’t become a problem later.

C: Arthur Frost: There might be a different perspective from the statewide level and district level but we’re on the ground and we see how these impacts effect day-today travel which is why we’re interested.

C: Jonathan Kapust: Finally, costs. The alternatives range from about 300 million to a little over 400 million.

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C: Jeannie Hebert: C-2 is looking pretty good.

C: Jonathan Kapust: The difference in costs come from the amount of road we’re building. 14-5 is very long and tall roadway over the rails and has the most amount of physical structure. C-2 doesn’t have that except over the mainline bridges.

C: Ryan McNeill: Any questions on our measures of effectiveness or any of the data? Next steps include finishing this round of stakeholder briefings which includes another meeting tomorrow. You’re invited to come back. Over the next two weeks we have four public meeting including in Worcester, Hopkinton, Bolton, and Milford because a lot of folks out there are interested in the interchange. we want to get input from folks in all impacted regions and then make a decision informed by all of that input.

Hopefully this fall/winter, we’ll decide on which one of these we’re going to build. The MEPA process, an environmental impact report and the design process will be front and center. We’ll have a MEPA hearing in 2019 and then we’ll be out in front of you again for more of a public hearing in 2020. Here’s the schedule, more of what I just said. Because of the environmental concerns in the area, the permitting aspects are involved and pretty in depth. This team will bring it to 25%, we’ll then ask contractors to tell us how well and how much it would take for them to build the rest.

We’re out here, we’d love to hear from you tonight. You can reach out to us via the project email. We’ll put this presentation on the website and it will be up there soon after this round of public meetings.

C: Nate Cabral-Curtis: Yes, we’ll put it up soon after everyone has had a chance to see them in person and we’ll also put up the meeting minutes. Feel free to share it with folks you think it might be interested.

Discussion Q: Jeannie Hebert: In regard to the cost, have you made allowances for inflation?

A: Ryan McNeill: Yes, we’ve considered inflation and estimate it at 4%.

C: Jeannie Hebert: Thank you. I’m just trying to think of questions that I’ll be asked.

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C: Ryan McNeill: And if you do get questions that you can’t answer, please reach out. The project email address is on the website. That email address comes to me, Donny Dailey, and Nate Cabral-Curtis.

C: Arthur Frost: You have a very good team working on this. We have had a lot of internal discussion on the pros and cons of each alternative. We put a lot of effort, input, and evaluation of direction into this and have very strong reasons for going in the direction we’ve gone.

C: Ryan McNeill: We’ve put in a considerable amount of work. On one hand, it took us a little longer than I wanted but, in the end, all the analysis did not cost us time because the end product is better and has given us a good foundation for making an educated decision.

C: Arthur Frost: And one of the advantages of C-2 that we didn’t talk about is that with these exit ramp loops here means that we don’t need to procure land to establish wetland protections. We’re able to do it right within the project area. From an environment standpoint, there are some strong advantages to this alternative.

C: Ryan McNeill: Last week, we had a meeting with environmental agencies, the DEP, some of the conservation commissions, the EPA, and got a lot of positive feedback with the choice.

C: Jeannie Hebert: That’s great cause those are the kinds of phone calls I’ll get from folks with concerns for the environment and conserving wetlands.

C: Ryan McNeill: Every once in a while, we have a good story to tell and this is one of them. To be able to do this project while accommodating for the wetlands and cedar trees is such a great story.

Q: Steve Slaman: What kinds of challenges did you all have with Fruit Street? Is the Fruit Street bridge going to get bigger? That’s new to me.

A: Jonathan Kapust: Fruit Street will need to be replaced with all the alternatives. The current piers are constraining our ability to add acceleration and deceleration lanes. For C-2 we shift the crown of Fruit Street a little farther east than it is today. By doing that, we get the clearance for a forward ramp which allows us to remove those twin lobes of ramps. It’s adjusting Fruit Street that makes it all possible.

Q: Steve Slaman: I know this is small on the spectrum, but we were talking about these potential snow gates. Was there anything that happened to look at if there is anything that can happen with that area on Fruit Street like turn offs or something to accommodate for snow trucks or

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emergency equipment. Could Fruit Street in anyway accommodate snow gates or anything like that?

A: Ryan McNeill: We are not putting in any access to Fruit Street, whether public or emergency.

Q: Steve Slaman: So that will always be one of my questions. For us, there are some scenarios with this being a limited access highway and the amount of resources towns like Westborough, Southborough, and Hopkinton have to service those areas. It is what it is in some ways but we’re always saying is there some spot where to put emergency access. Is there anywhere on Fruit Street that could have a gate for emergency access? Could it at least be explored? It would be nice to hear that it was looked at.

A: Ryan McNeill: We will look at it. We’ve heard your concerns and similar things from the district.

C: Arthur Frost: We’re concerned as well.

C: Steve Slaman: I noticed there is a camera now that MassDOT has now on the overpass for MassPike and 495. We’ve talked about any technologies that might help in emergencies. While it doesn’t happen every day, there are times when you’re moving between two or three communities searching for the emergency on limited access highways and it’s a brutal impact to us. The good news is we are lower the impact with this project – that’s awesome – that might be the answer but there are just all these times when we cannot locate emergencies. Maybe we could install cameras in more areas to retain view the area for where hazards will be. This will be an ask of mine until the end.

C: Ryan McNeill: He’s taking notes, we’ve all heard your comment. It’s more of a final design thing and we’ll take a look at it.

C: Arthur Frost: I’m not sure where exactly but I know we’ve added some more cameras.

C: Steve Slaman: There’s one on the bridge that you can access on the website. It would need some more work to do what I’m looking for. It only looks one direction. You’d have to spend about 15-20 minutes of phone calls to get it to aim somewhere else. It’s not functional for emergency response. This is an opportunity.

A: Jonathan Kapust: We’re working to make sure that all the visual elements of that current camera will be maintained, if not improved.

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C: Arthur Frost: If you have specific ideas of a certain area where you could use cameras, please share it. Your voice sometimes means more than ours in some of these things.

A: Steve Slaman: The state representatives were out, and we brought it up with them. I’ll keep passing it along. The equipment is there, now we just need to make it functional. It won’t serve our needs unless we poke at it a little more.

C: Ryan McNeill: We’ll keep that in mind and reach out to get your thoughts on where new cameras might go. Any other questions?

Q: Steve Slaman: Is this where we send questions?

A: Arthur Frost: Yes, and you can always reach out to the district too.

C: Steve Slaman: And I have cards if anyone wants to hear me more.

C: Nate Cabral-Curtis: We would.

C: Ryan McNeill: Thanks everyone for coming.

C: Steve Slaman: Thanks for the effort.

Next Steps Following the scheduled stakeholder briefings, four public information meetings will be held in the next two weeks in Hopkinton, Worcester, Bolton, and Milford to present the alternative designs and gather additional feedback from the public.

Further into the project’s design development, a MEPA meeting, Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), 25% Design Public Hearing, federal environmental permitting, and Design/Build procurement are all anticipated. Construction and final design will proceed in parallel once a Design/Build contractor is selected; construction estimates will be created as the design progresses.

Public involvement will continue throughout all phases of the project. More information, past presentations, information regarding the history of the project including the ENF phase of work, and contact information is available at the project webpage: https://www.mass.gov/i-495i-90-interchange-improvements.

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Appendix 1: Meeting Attendees First Name Last Name Affiliation

Nate Cabral-Curtis Howard Stein Hudson

Joe Cahill HNTB

Arthur Frost MassDOT District 3

Joe Grilli HNTB

Jeannie Hebert Blackstone Valley

Jonathan Kapust HNTB

Nate Lash Howard Stein Hudson

Dave Matton Howard Stein Hudson

Ryan McNeill MassDOT

Steve Slaman Hopkinton Fire Department