HYANNIS – Cape Cod Commission Technical Services Director Glenn Cannon updated Barnstable Town Council on the Route 28/Yarmouth Road project status Thursday night.
Plans call for dual left turning lanes on Rt. 28 and up Yarmouth Road to Exit 7. Yarmouth Road would also be widened significantly with two lanes in both directions.
Traffic will be returned to a single lane north of Rt. 6.
There will also be a shared use path that the Commission is working with MassDOT on, to provide a critical link extension of the Cape Cod Rail Trail to downtown Hyannis.
The trail will travel along the southern border of Rt. 6.
The KAM Appliance building would be a taking of property for the project. Cannon confirmed the company is currently in negotiations to sell the building.
Construction and design of the roadway work is being funded by MassDOT and the project is part of the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), a five-year schedule of regional priority roadway, transit, and multimodal projects receiving federal funding.
A 21 day public comment period on the work starts on April 24.
The Cape Cod Commission receives around $10 million from MassDOT annually for projects across Cape Cod, but the work on Rt. 28/Yarmouth Road would take $9.5 million of that money in 2019.
MassDOT funding is scheduled per year, not per project.
That could bump out planned work for Rte. 28A and Rt. 151 in Falmouth that was scheduled for 2019, and move it to another year.
MassDOT has made a recommendation to move the project from 2019 to 2020.
State transportation officials attribute staffing issues and that it’s a complex intersection to build, but said that they will they’re going to make every effort to keep the project in 2019.
Doing that would create a hole in 2019 of about $7 million that transportation officials would have to look to fill.
“In 2011, MassDOT and the Cape Cod Commission underwent a Hyannis Access Study and I called it phase one for the implementation of that project, so we’re already six years into that without a shovel in the ground yet, looking at 2019 and the potential of 2020,” said Cannon.
Plans are currently at 75 percent completion.
Town Manager Mark Ells said that it is important that project stay on the current timeframe as the route is a major corridor to access Cape Cod Hospital.
Town Council also requested that no delays take place in getting the project done.
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