During this year’s street and sidewalk construction season, the Department of Public Works Highway Division aims to work on about 15 of the 260 lane miles on Needham’s more than 450 streets. It also intends to improve a mile or two of the town’s 160-mile sidewalk network by upgrading curbs and ramps.
The work will be done across more than three dozen projects chosen via a triage process weighted heavily toward public ways in the poorest condition. The plan prioritizes areas with safety concerns and underlying infrastructure needs (often related to drainage) and clusters the work to make the best use of the funding that is available.
The DPW has a mountain of data at its disposal, including a Pavement Condition Index that assigns a numerical rank to the town’s road surfaces. Paving is targeted for the roadways rated most in need.
The DPW also tries to address safety conditions that are viewed as problematic “depending on where the paving schedule takes us,” according to Tyler Gabrielski, the town’s director of streets and transportation.
“A lot of that work is spun out of Transportation Safety Committee petitions for crosswalks and other things that were requested,” Gabrielski said. The TSC exists to hear citizen traffic safety concerns throughout town. It receives requests for crosswalks, stop signs, speed limit adjustments, increased traffic enforcement and other actions that might improve safety.
One location that prompted a critical mass of requests to TSC was the distinctive intersection of Hoover Road, Tower Avenue and Paul Revere Road. All three streets converge at the top of a hill, and determining who has the right-of-way is far from clear.
The intersection reconstruction is intended to funnel traffic more appropriately through the neighborhood while also lowering average speeds. It will provide the added benefit of reducing impervious surface and the helpful hint of clarifying where Paul Revere and Hoover roads start and end.
“That will be our first curb and sidewalk project for this season,” said Gabrielski, who expects the work to begin mid-June. The project was postponed from the 2025 schedule to respond to resident feedback.
“There were at least two neighborhood meetings about that project and a lot of tweaking of that design as well,” he said.
“The corners of the intersection were being pulled in to create a more traditional four-legged intersection, rather than a very large, circular piece of pavement with roads coming off of it in every direction.”
It will include shortening a crosswalk and adding a stop sign.
Project list could be longer … or shorter
There are other holdover projects from the 2025 project list. “We did about 60% of the work we did in 2024,” Gabrielski said, noting 2024 had been an especially productive season.
The work is not bid as individual projects. Rather, contractors bid to provide a volume of work at established prices that include quantities of paving, sidewalk work, etc. They are then assigned to particular “mobilizations” throughout the summer. The work can be delayed if contractors are tied up with other work or otherwise not immediately available when the mobilizations are scheduled — and some projects require more than one contractor to be available for different elements.
Weather can also be a factor. Some years, the work proceeds efficiently and additional projects can be added. Other years, there are delays and projects need to be pushed back.
The cost for resurfacing in FY26 is expected to be $152,000 or more per lane mile. Sidewalk work is far more expensive on a per-mile basis. According to the Town Meeting warrant, reconstructing one mile of asphalt sidewalk with incidental costs is estimated to be $469,500 per mile. Installing a mile of granite curb with minor drainage improvements and incidental costs is estimated to be $505,190 per mile.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires curb ramps be upgraded to ADA standards whenever a significant alteration is made. According to the TM warrant, a curb ramp upgrade on average costs $9,000, with some streets having as many as 10-15 ramp locations.
Annual Town Meeting in May approved $3.5 million from the town’s *Free Cash “to make improvements and repairs to Town infrastructure, including but not limited to roads, bridges, sidewalks, intersections, drains, brooks, and culverts.”
The DPW operating budget also contains $471,223 for paving, $145,206 for surface treatments and $122,677 for curbs and sidewalks. Those funds are tapped first and then Free Cash is utilized.
{*Free Cash is a certified surplus of unrestricted funds from previous fiscal years. It is generated when actual revenues exceed budget estimates and when spending comes in under budget.}
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