"The intersection is going to be made wider to accommodate left turn lanes on Route 9," said Guilford Mooring, the superintendent of public works for the town of Amherst. The new roads will cut into what is now part of the town commons and part of the College's land bordering the route.
Even though work will be outside the travel way, the Superintendent's Office warns that drivers should expect travel delays and lane closures during the course of the work.
"Traffic was already bad now in both lanes," said Mooring. "The road's backed down almost to the railroad tracks in the afternoon. There wasn't enough capacity in the intersection and so this project is to improve the capacity of the roads. It's hard to predict how bad traffic is going to get."
"It seems like [traffic] is always bad," said Sarah Dilorenzo '03. "It even seems bad at random times like mid-morning. [The construction] is irritating, but it has to be done. There's really no use in getting overly annoyed."
Work this fall will consist of grading, new sidewalk installation and installation of new traffic signals. "[The buzzers] are going to be a lot more pleasant sounding," said Mooring.
Once the initial steps are completed, work on the roads will be stopped for winter. No work will be done to the existing road surface itself until next spring. Completion of the entire project is estimated for April 2003, according to Mooring.
"It will be interesting," said Mooring. "What's going to happen is that construction workers will close the lane, or half the lane, to work during working hours. At the end of the workday, they'll open it back up."
A Transportation Enhancement Project by the state of Massachusetts, the construction is funded in part by the state and in part by federal money.