This Is What Vibrant Looks Like | Why Route 9 works and what the future holds for MetroWest's main drag

Sprawling corporate campuses, dense shopping centers and mini malls, car dealerships, apartments and houses, big box stores, restaurants, seedy hotels, wetlands and brambly woods - this is the hurly burly jumble that is Route 9 between Shrewsbury and Wellesley.

It was once described by a columnist as a "God-awful" strip of asphalt. It's also been decried as ugly, traffic-choked, overbuilt, and, in sections, perilous to navigate both on wheels and on foot.

Its personality is undefined; its aesthetics erratic.

But up until now at least, this shifting ambiguity has been the corridor's very identity.

"The only constant thing on Route 9 is change," noted Deborah Penta, whose namesake business, Penta Communications Inc., is nestled along Westborough's stretch of the roadway. "It's constantly evolving."

Still, if the corridor is going to meet the demands (and inevitable expansion) of the future, many say it would do well to develop a more cohesive identity, as well as a managed, 21st Century-focused growth plan.

And growth is something the densely packed roadway certainly knows all about.

"This region's exploded, and a large part of that growth has occurred along Route 9," said Paul Matthews, executive director of the Westborough-based 495/Metrowest Partnership, a public-private collaboration of the region's businesses, cities and towns.

And many say there's room for even more expansion, much as it might seem like some sections of the corridor have bulged the boundaries of development.

For instance, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission are projecting that Westborough and Southborough, which both sit at the junction of Interstate 495 and Route 9, will see a 16 percent increase in population and a 21 percent increase in workers by 2030.

Overall, "there are still plenty of parcels along Route 9 that are going to be developed, and redeveloped," said Bruce Leish, director of the MetroWest Growth Management Committee, a coalition of MetroWest communities that span the track of the Route 9 corridor between Interstates 95 and 495.

But it has to be done the right way.

Specifically, noted Eric Bourassa, transportation manager for the Boston-based Metropolitan Area Planning Council: Enabling transit and regional bus services, strategically placing housing near job sites to encourage more walking and biking, and fostering various types of commercial and residential development alternatives through denser, mixed-use zoning.

The regional planning agency has done significant work over the years around the corridor's land use and zoning. It is now studying traffic congestion and different zoning scenarios, Bourassa explained, and plans to have a report ready this summer.

In any case, some sort of growth plan or other alternative should take shape, as the roadway is "starting to reach its capacity," said Rob Nagi, a principal at the Watertown transportation and engineering planning firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., and longtime Westborough resident. He contends that his town has the most opportunity for growth, due to several open, commercially zoned parcels.

Still, "there's a finite capacity for the roadway," he said.

Getting Together
One suggestion to mitigate and reshape future development is the formulation of a regional master plan, as well as inter-town planning.

"It all begins and ends with good local planning," said Rod Jané, a Westborough selectman and chair of the town's economic development committee. "The more commercial development we can plan along Route 9 - and plan well - the more commercial revenue we can generate without changing the old New England character of these towns."

Penta agreed that some sort of "common ground" with regard to zoning requirements could make the corridor more universal and consistent.

Inevitably, that would give "Route 9 its own personality, its own signature."

Such collaboration has been fostered in the past.

As Matthews explained, communities along the corridor - each of which faces its own individual challenges - have occasionally worked together with regard to development, and have also met to discuss how best to evolve. There have also been partnerships within their borders. For instance, businesses along Route 9 in Shrewsbury recently formed the Lakeway Business District Association to raise money for landscaping and marketing.

Another example is the "Golden triangle" overlay regulations enacted in Framingham and Natick in the late 1980s, Leish explained. Several statutes were put into place in the triangle during a "lull" in development that regulated landscape buffer setbacks, sidewalk requirements, as well as pedestrian access, he said.

Overall, it changed the perception of Route 9. "It really improved the aesthetics and the traffic flow," said Leish, although he acknowledged that he does find an aesthetic issue with the jersey barriers that run in a continuous band along the roadway.

Which isn't the sort of praise you're likely to hear from most people.

Stop And Go
In fact, the 495/Metrowest Partnership once identified the top 10 "transportation nightmares" in the region - three of which were on Route 9. They included the Lyman Street intersection in Westborough, the Central Street crossover in Southborough, and the I-495/Route 9 interchange.

When it comes to the latter, about 53,000 vehicles whir up and down Route 9 in its vicinity every day, according to MassHighway. All told, roughly 58,200 drivers use the interchange daily, and that's estimated to increase to 73,000 vehicles a day, an increase of 25 percent, by 2030, according to MAPC.

In an effort to make room for this additional traffic, U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, recently announced $285,000 in federal money to do preliminary plans, engineering and design for an interchange expansion.

All over the corridor, though, "traffic always gets a little bit worse," said Nagi, who does studies of Route 9 for the state, municipalities and businesses.

He's also on it every day, commuting from Westborough to Watertown. Certain areas have a "lot of congestion, constantly," he said, and that shifts like the tide depending on demand, like the inevitable jam-ups during the Christmas season, and development projects.

And it may get worse in an effort to make it better.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is about to embark on a $12.5 million road resurfacing project along roughly 8 miles of the corridor in Natick and Framingham. The money is from the federal stimulus fund, and work is expected to be completed by June 2011, according to Mass DOT.

As a result, some Route 9 businesses have expressed concerns about visibility and access during the project, according to Erika Jerram, senior planner in Framingham.

Still, neither that or ongoing traffic issues "seem to keep (businesses) from wanting to be there," she noted.

Indeed, the corridor tends to sells itself.

"It's been a very popular area," said Bob Yale, managing director with Northborough-based Sperry Van Ness, a commercial realty firm that has been involved with the sale of several parcels along Route 9.

Mostly, he said, the attraction is the available array of more affordable office space (compared to Boston), the access, and the quality of life.

So, as Jerram wryly put it: "We haven't gotten calls about Route 9 being an economic development wasteland."

Therefore, Framingham and other towns don't put a lot of extra effort into Route 9, at least when it comes to economic development.

"It's not one of our highest challenged areas," Jerram said. "That's where a lot of the businesses want to be."

Like Penta, for instance. About two decades ago, when the marketer was looking to relocate her business from Worcester, there was really only one place she looked: Route 9.

Access, location, good restaurants nearby, a nice community: All these things drew her.

"It was really a perfect spot," said Penta, who describes the roadway in the 21st century as a "booming mini-Mecca." "We love the fact that our sign is on Route 9," she added.

And over the years, "there really hasn't been a drawback that has even entered my mind," she said.

One Less Car
Nagi, despite his gripes about traffic, agreed.

"It's too good of an area not to want to move to, and it's got a lot to offer," he said. "We want to continue to keep businesses at least looking out here."

Thus, he and others have several ideas for ways to foster future sustainable growth.

For instance, planners are suggesting linking parking lots internally and thus lessening the number of cars entering and exiting the roadway; and pulling sidewalks away from the road to establish more of a "linear park," according to Leish.

If you've ever tried, walking the corridor can be hazardous, which is something Mark Racicot, land use division manager at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, learned recently during a stroll down Route 9.

What he found: Crosswalks without corresponding traffic signals, deteriorating sidewalks and some areas where walkways were nearly indiscernible from the road.

"It's not a very friendly pedestrian environment," said Racicot.

So oftentimes, workers will get in their cars and drive just a few hundred feet down the road to get lunch or run errands. "That should be a fairly easy car to take off the road," Racicot said. "It would be one less car out there getting in the way of people who have to travel longer distances."

Ideally, the goal would be to get housing, offices and shops more clustered together through changes in zoning and land use patterns, he said.

With that in place, people could walk between buildings, and buses and shuttles could also loop between "key nodes" along the corridor.

Nagi agreed that demand could be decreased through greater emphasis on public transportation, or cultivation of nearby bike trails. In the future, he also expects more growth in the way of campus-style developments.

But inevitably, there's only so much that can be done. The corridor has limitations.

"It is a strip of development. Nobody's saying Route 9 should become a village center," Leish acknowledged.

And when it comes to traffic, some say it's an inevitable burden of success.

A heavy volume of cars is ultimately "positive" and "healthy," Penta asserted. "It means people are employed and they're getting out there, and that companies on Route 9 are alive and well."

But will congestion always be one of the corridor's character traits?

"Probably," said Nagi.

Like Penta, however, he noted, "In many ways I hope it continues to stay congested. That means that the economic vitality of Metrowest is still booming."