Functional Design Report connects data to plan
The Town’s planning department today made its Mass. Ave. Functional Design Report available at its web page for the project.
This technical document is the bulkier, gnarlier accompaniment to the drawings that have been available for about a month.
All were filed with Mass. Highway last month, setting the stage (eventually) for hearings here in town on the broad parameters of the plan.
The report weighs in at 56 MB and describes how traffic counts and other measures inform the design.
I have not read it yet, but a quick glance suggests the report includes a lot of backup material, including the raw data of the traffic counts, broken down into 15-minute periods.
The actual FDR is only about 60 pages long; the remaining 740 pages (and change) is appendix.
Two things popped out during my very cursory scan of the 60-page FDR:
- The consultants expressly examined the four-lane option advocated by opponents to the project and found it wanting (§3.3.1, pp. 31–35).
- The estimated cost of the project has climbed to $5.8 million (p. 52).
