About the Corridor

Route 6 (also known as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway) runs about 4.5 miles Southeast across Westport. Entering from the Fall River border and exiting into Dartmouth, Route 6 is a major thoroughfare in the South Coast Region of Massachusetts, connecting Providence, Rhode Island to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod. I-195 travels parallel to the North while Route 177 cuts across Westport to the South before merging with Route 6 at the Dartmouth border.  

The neighborhood scales and development styles along Route 6 in Westport, which vary significantly over the course of the corridor, can be understood through a node-based framework.  

The Western Commercial Gateway, located along the South Wattupa Pond on the Fall River border, has a higher intensity of commercial development and is a strong candidate for future growth with potential for a “downtown” feel. Fall River’s Quequechan River Rail Trail terminates here at the Westport border and provides opportunity for a continuous pedestrian connection with Fall River, bringing foot/bicycle traffic and potentially even tourism to Route 6. 

The area surrounding the Route 6 and Route 88 is primarily Wetlands which cannot support intensive development and are valuable for both conservation and stormwater management.  

The Bread & Cheese Brook that bisects Route 6 about 75% of the way through is a vital waterway in the community and connects directly to the Westport River. Currently, development near the Brook is exclusively septic-based, and nitrogen leakages from these septic systems are a major source of pollution to the Westport River. Therefore, there should be a significant buffer around Bread & Cheese Brook if any future septic-based development is to occur.  

Finally, the Eastern Commercial Gateway on the Dartmouth border is another potential candidate for growth, with residents having previously expressed a desire for quaint, human-scale, multi-modal development that deviates from the strip-mall style buildings seen on Route 6 just across the border.  

With this context in mind, we will strive to create a Neighborhood Plan for the corridor that utilizes Route 6’s existing and potential strengths while taking care not to exacerbate its weaknesses. If you have any opinions on what those strengths, weaknesses, and concerns are, give feedback and help craft this plan with your community!