Nashua Downtown Master Plan
would be highly valuable in redirect-
ing east/west traffic now on Amherst
Street through Railroad Square to
other locations (most obviously, to
Franklin Street, thereby crossing
Main Street away from Railroad
Square).
Lack of Local Street Connections
To the south of the Nashua River
(ie., in the Millyard and in the Hol-
lis Street area), the Parkway termi-
nates in a dense network of small
local streets or street-like spaces in
the Millyard and the Tree Streets
Neighborhood. Rather than weaving
the Parkway into these streets, how-
ever, the proposed design obliterates
them, connecting only at one existing
street (Ledge Street) with a seven-
lane cross section, and at a large new
single intersection (five lane
approaches) in the Millyard.
Through Trips Although a stated
purpose of the proposed Broad Street
Parkway is the relief of through traf-
fic (i.e., traffic with neither origin nor
destination in Nashua), the road as
configured does not offer an impres-
sive source of relief. The major
through movements within Nashua
are not fundamentally north/south
movements, but rather east/west
movements, primarily between inter-
changes 5, 6 and 7 of the Everett
‘Turnpike and the single crossing
(Hollis Street) of the Merrimack
River. The currently proposed con-
figuration of the Broad Street Park-
way rearranges some of these move-
ments, particularly the movements
between Everett Turnpike inter-
changes 6 and 7 and the Hollis Street
crossing of the Merrimack River. The
proposed Parkway will permit the
rerouting of these movements (or
some of them) away from the con-
gested multi-leg intersection at Rail-
road Square, and redirect them
toward the new north/south river
crossing and then onto Hollis Street
and Kinsley Street. This rerouting of
traffic, however, may not have a large
benefit, since the same volume of
east/west traffic would still appear at
the critical bottleneck location at the
Hollis Street crossing of the Merri-
mack River.
Cost The cost of the proposed Board
Street Parkway ($60 million) is
extravagant and out of scale. Almost
all of the major street network (arte-
rial and collector street) within
Nashua is in need of major expendi-
ture for preservation and upgrading.
Reducing the scope of the proposed
Broad Street Parkway and redirecting
the “savings” in funds to other
needed projects throughout the City
would, in all likelihood, yield a far
greater level of return per dollar
expended.
Land Consumption The sweeping
curves, dictated by the higher design
speed of the proposed Parkway, con-
sume large amounts of land for the
roadway footprint itself, and further
