I’ve been uptown recently, doing business with several of our Main Street businesses.

I note:

— Loss of “convenient” on-street parking (Ward’s Barbershop)

— Loss of “comfortable” on-street parking (Phipps Insurance)

— Reduced egress at businesses (Shell station, Main Street Service, Star Cleaners, and Hamilton Hair Studio)

— Elimination of access to some on-site parking (Hopkinton Lumber)!

If access to a business is substantially impeded, is that likely to contribute to the business’ continued success? Back when I was younger and “naiver,” I sat at a Hopkinton Select Board meeting and listened to, and I quote, “The revenue lost, that needs to be taken care of.” (Select Board meeting, Sept. 24, 2019). Back then I really thought the words of elected officials counted for more than just 10.

I’m curious if Select Board members have visited our Main Street businesses and inquired as to their current welfare, and/or provided advance notice of such access/parking impediments to our Main Street businesses?

Now, lastly, and as was pointed out to me by “a kid” (wiser than his years), the portion of “new” Main Street from east of Pleasant Street to Hopkinton Lumber would appear to also represent a significant impediment, but this time to emergency vehicles! I measured the width of Main Street, curb to curb, at the Pleasant Street intersection as 28 feet. Given the normal assortment of afternoon traffic — trailer trucks, trash trucks, school buses, lawn care trailers, oil delivery trucks, etc., when there is a 911 call from the Lisnow Respite Center, or Golden Pond, an accident on 495, or other points west, with the two lanes of traffic now confined by insurmountable vertical curbs, how will our 9-foot-wide first responders [vehicle] get between two 9-foot-wide vehicles.

Well, at least the sidewalks on the northerly side are amply wide, depending upon where one measures, varying from over 6 feet across from Pleasant Street to 9 feet by Phipps Insurance. (State only requires 5 feet.) No impediment to pedestrian travel here!

— Edwin Harrow, Hopkinton

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