Now riding the highway, I-93's Good Samaritans
The widening of Interstate 93 from two to four lanes from Salem, N.H., north to Manchester may have been delayed by a Conservation Law Foundation lawsuit, but the project is already helping commuters who run into trouble on the highway.
On May 1, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation began service patrols to help motorists stranded on the highway with minor vehicle problems such as a flat tire or an empty gas tank.
The six-month, $65,400 program is included in the department's I-93 Traffic Incident Management Plan, which is part of the widening project.
"The goal of the program is to reduce significant traffic tie-ups by quickly dealing with minor problems," Department of Transportation spokesman Bill Boynton said last week.
The orange pickup trucks will ride a circuit every day but Saturday from Exit 3 in Windham to Exit 47 in Methuen, stopping for all incidents they encounter .
Boynton said they have already helped out five motorists and stopped several times to remove debris from the highway during their first week of operation.
He said the department has increased its budget for pothole repair this year from $1 million to $1.5 million and is looking for more money to repair other road problems.
"It's been a particularly bad year for potholes," he said.
Speaking of road damage, the Department of Transportation held a public meeting late last month on repairs to Depot Road in Hollis, near the Massachusetts state line, where a stone culvert that allows Sucker Brook to pass under the road is in disrepair.
The $330,000 project will require that the road be reduced to one-way traffic during the six-week project. Michael J. Fudala, a design engineer at the Transportation Department, said last week the work is expected to begin in August.
The parkway, which has been proposed for more than a decade, would alleviate downtown traffic with a cross-city road passing through the high-technology area in a former mill yard and linking Broad Street to the west with the "tree streets" to the south and east.
The hearing was to discuss a $30,000 study conducted for the Nashua Regional Planning Commission to find cheaper alternatives to the $100 million plan presented in 2007.
At the meeting, representatives of the commission and the design firm of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. presented two alternatives that would shave millions off the original proposal.
One option, costing between $57 million and $66.4 million, would route most of the traffic to West Hollis and Kinsley streets in the south. A second option would cost $52 million to $60.5 million. It would straighten the proposed bridge over the Nashua River and route more traffic from Central, Water, and Factory streets to Main Street.
Both proposals eliminate a 14-foot median between two lanes of traffic, reduce the size of a sidewalk, and cut the length of the Nashua River bridge from 1,100 feet to 400 feet.
The Nashua Board of Aldermen has yet to decide whether to proceed with the highway in any form.
Starts & Stops appears every other Sunday in Globe Northwest. Transportation comments and questions may be sent to starts@globe.com.
