Bourne Rotary $1.8M upgrade begins this spring. Here's what to know.

BOURNE — The Bourne Rotary is a busy place framed by Dunkin’ Donuts — with two entrances — the state police barracks, a gas station, and a pending Cumberland Farms construction project at the start of the Bourne Auto Mile.

The state Department of Transportation plans to upgrade the rotary, on the south side of the Bourne Bridge. Work is expected to begin this spring. The $1.8 million project is designed to enhance the Depression-era design of the heavily traveled circle to improve traffic flow and safety.

According to the state transportation database, fixes for the rotary include signs, restriping and two lanes of "channelized" right-hand turns in the circle from Route 28 northbound to Sandwich Road Extension eastbound, which the state classifies as minor widening. There will also be two marked rotary lanes for drivers exiting west to Trowbridge Road.

Bourne Select Board Chair Mary Jane Mastrangelo asked state transportation officials if they considered a newly built Bourne Bridge when designing upgrades to the rotary.

“The Bourne south rotary project has been downsized from the original proposal, but I do have concerns it will not adequately address the issues and will need to be re-done when the Bourne Bridge is replaced,” Mastrangelo said in a Jan. 30 email to the Times.

In January, state transportation Project Manager Thomas Currier unveiled the infrastructure proposal, advising the Select Board that the “maintenance” effort is designed for the here and now to ensure orderly transit into, through, and out of the circle.

What is the current state of the Bourne Rotary?

The Bourne Rotary, with its welcoming hedgerow Cape Cod sign, serves tens of thousands of motorists throughout the year, with the greatest volumes experienced in the summer, according to research from the state and the Cape Cod Commission.

The traffic-choked circle during the early morning hours borders on gridlock. Morning traffic includes school buses, boat deliveries, ash haulers bound for the Bourne landfill, cement mixers, food delivery 18-wheelers and other larger trucks along with motorists bound for work.

Afternoon traffic at the rotary is made worse by four schools all within a half-mile of the circle getting out for the day, all at nearly the same time.

The circle is regionally infamous for drivers on the inside lane suddenly swerving or otherwise cutting off traffic in the outside lane to exit the rotary.

A 2014 Cape Cod Commission report identified the Bourne Rotary as a Barnstable County high-crash location using 2006 to 2008 state transportation data. There were 71 crashes during that time or 1.21 crashes per million cars entering the rotary.

‘Thanks for the plans, but we have concerns’

Mastrangelo has reviewed construction documents, lane markings and signage plans and sent questions to state transportation officials.

“Will the shown lane markings for turning or going straight be the painted in the lanes?” she asked. “What other ways will traffic be directed to the correct lane?”

Mastrangelo also seeks information about traffic counts “going south from Bourne Bridge to MacArthur Boulevard. Is that the major traffic route with more than the traffic going south than turning east to Sandwich Road?” she asked.

“I ask because having two lanes exiting to the boulevard has been a big crash spot,” she said. “If the right-hand lane will be prohibited from turning left toward Sandwich Road, that will help but clear marking will be needed well in advance, before the bridge, that the right lane is only going south to MacArthur (Boulevard)."

Board member Jared MacDonald, the retired Bourne patrol officer, says better signage is badly needed on both sides of circle approaches. Something, he says, to give motorists advance information about lanes they should be in well before they reach the circle.

Keeping drivers in designated lanes

State transportation plans show signage, landscaping and so-called rumble strips being installed to delineate rotary lanes and new side-street additions. The circle will be remilled. Old roadway stripes will not return. New striping and pavement markings will clearly mark travel into, through and out of the circle.

The reengineering effort is to keep drivers who do not need to traverse the entire circle in lanes expressly designed to avoid that. This may not totally eliminate motoring anxiety, but construction documents indicate some relief.

Mastrangelo, in January, asked for state transportation department pre-construction meetings, in part to keep the community informed. Currier, the state project manager, obliged.

State Sen. Susan Moran, D-Falmouth, in a late December press release, said meetings of appropriate stakeholders and elected officials would be held bi-monthly to collaboratively consider rotary work and strategize when it comes to motoring issues, such as the immense backups that evolved during recent Sagamore Bridge repairs.

Maintenance work on the Sagamore Bridge isn't expected before 2025, said Bryan Purtell, public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the organization responsible for maintaining the Cape Cod Canal bridges, said in November.

“The USACE has been conducting extended maintenance work on the bridges about every two years,” Purtell said. “We did maintenance work on the bridges in 2021 and again this year, completing work on the Sagamore in March and April of 2023. We are constantly inspecting both bridges throughout the year.”

Rotary work scheduled mostly for nighttime

The state transportation department expects to start the rotary work in early March and finish the project in November. The work will be mostly done at night and will be halted during the summer.

There will be “slight detours” at times when paving is needed for new side streets off the rotary leading to MacArthur Boulevard southbound as well as Sandwich Road eastbound from the boulevard.

The designated contractor is Lawrence-Lynch Corp. of Falmouth, the firm that undertook upgrades at Belmont Circle in Buzzards Bay designed to accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists.

Cumberland Farms project may be delayed

Boston attorney Douglas Troyer, meanwhile, has asked the Bourne Planning Board for a one-year extension of its special permit and site plan review of the rotary-adjacent Cumberland Farms project to construct a new gas station and convenience store complex.

Assistant Town Planner Julia Gillis said on Jan. 30, the board is slated to consider the request Feb. 8 at the Bourne Veterans Memorial Community Building in Buzzards Bay.

State transportation department construction documents show access to the Cumberland Farms complex from the upgraded rotary and egress along MacArthur Boulevard southbound.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Traffic circle south of Bourne Bridge slated for $1.8M upgrade