A Massachusetts transportation program has supported planning and engineering work in 33 communities, from a proposed walking path around Berkley Town Common to traffic-safety planning in Everett and Lowell.
MassDOT released the project list Oct. 21 for Local Early and Actionable Planning, known as LEAP. The program receives $1 million a year and began in 2025.
Rather than hand municipalities a conventional construction grant, LEAP connects them with MassDOT staff and engineering consultants. The assistance includes traffic studies, early designs, cost estimates and preparation for other funding applications.
In Berkley, the work covers a concept and cost estimate for a three-quarter-mile path, with proposed crosswalks and lighting around the Town Common. MassDOT says local students identified a need for safer walking connections to school.
Everett is developing a citywide method to rank streets for traffic-calming work, along with a public dashboard and planning tools. Traffic calming uses street design to encourage safer vehicle speeds.
Other assignments include prioritizing aging culverts in Deerfield, designing about 1,000 feet of replacement sidewalk on Northfield's Parker Avenue, and examining a possible walking and cycling bridge over the Millers River in Royalston. Lowell's work concerns prioritizing intersections with high crash counts.
The program focuses on rural communities, Gateway Cities and municipalities with limited planning capacity.
Early design can help a community seek a larger grant. The project list does not mean those projects are fully financed, approved for construction or assigned a start date.