After many years of hearing concerns from residents of Forest Road about the state of their sidewalks, Greenfield is working with the state Department of Transportation to address pedestrian safety on the section of Route 31 between Stephenson Memorial Library and 701 Forest Road.
“It has come up in town meeting a couple times now that the sidewalk from Slip Road going past the library and up the hill is in kind of sad shape, and we promised to look into it,” Greenfield Select Board Chair Tom Bascom said Tuesday.
While the town will not be able to fully replace the existing sidewalk due to space constraints, the Select Board says it is now working with the state to create a safe pedestrian walkway on Forest Road.
On July 22, the Select Board hosted a meeting with Frank Linnenbringer, District 4 engineer for NHDOT, to discuss options for repairing the stretch of sidewalk in question.
“We arranged a meeting with NHDOT for residents to air their concerns, because it’s a state road. We can’t just do work in the right-of-way. We have to coordinate with the state,” Bascom said. “We discussed the condition of the shoulder, and we talked about ways to address pedestrian safety issues in the scope of what the state will permit.”
Bascom said the meeting had a good turnout, with about a dozen Forest Road residents in attendance.
“We had people concerned about pedestrian safety, and we had people asking about what might happen to their trees or their lawn if the sidewalk were to be widened,” Bascom said.
Ginni Plourde, a Forest Road resident, said she is glad the town is looking into the matter.
“This is a great step in the right direction. Clean it up, make it look reasonable, and make it safe,” Plourde said.
According to both the town and the state, the town sidewalk officially ends at 701 Forest Road. The paved shoulder past that point is considered a drainage swale.
In response to questions from Forest Road residents about the possibility of upgrading the existing sidewalk, Linnenbringer said that if the town wishes to replace the existing pedestrian infrastructure with a new sidewalk, it would have to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards for pedestrian accessibility.
The ADA requires sidewalks to be at least 5 feet wide, or 4 feet wide with turnaround spaces every 200 feet.
Town road agent Jim Morris said that widening the existing sidewalk to 4 or 5 feet would be difficult or impossible in many places, particularly where the road is lined by stone walls.
“Quite a few people walk up and down there, but there is no place to put a full sidewalk. It would take people’s yards. There is no shoulder there, and on either side, there are stone walls, or there are hills,” Bascom said.
Bascom said upgrading the sidewalk would require “significantly more detailed requirements than there were back in the day.”
“It’s not like the old days, when the town could just decide to put something in there. Things have gotten a lot more complicated,” Bascom said.
Forest Road resident Lenny Cornwell, who worked for the state highway department for 30 years, provided background on the history of the sidewalk at the July 22 meeting.
“I mentioned that the sidewalk was built by Henry Duncklee for 50 feet in front of the Greenfield Inn in the late 1880s with the ‘new’ concrete product,” Cornwell said. “That was followed by George Reynolds, who lived in what is now the Shaw’s house, and the town pouring the rest of the sidewalk from that point down around the corner on Slip Road to the train depot on Depot Street.”
Cornwell also said former Greenfield road agent Ricky Weston paved the sidewalk and swale in the late 1980s.
Bascom said the town’s immediate concern is to address pedestrian safety by repairing the walkway ending at 701 Forest Road, applying to create a “paved ditch,” which will allow for drainage and can be safely walked.
“We also talked about longer-term sidewalk planning that we might be able to do in town, and we talked about some potential for getting grants and planning support from the Southwest Regional Planning Commission,” Bascom said.
Bascom said the town’s next step will be for Morris to work with NHDOT to create a plan for the new walkway.
“Jim will work with NHDOT to do the work and address the issue. Their main concern is that we not do anything that will mess up the flow of water; if they change the flow of water, it will create a problem. We will work with the state to address the issue,” Bascom said.
