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Swansea and SRPEDD are teaming up to study the route 103 or Wilbur Avenue corridor near the Ocean Grove neighborhood. Follow along to learn more about land use and urban design considerations to improve the quality of life in and around Ocean Grove. As you watch this video, we hope you can reflect on your lived experience of route 103 as a driver, pedestrian or biker, think about if you feel safe traveling along the corridor in a car. What about your experience on foot or on a bike? What other types of businesses would you like to see along 103 and how can we create a corridor unique to Swansea? Swansea, Massachusetts, is a family-friendly, suburban community with rural charm and access to modern amenities. The Town sits at the mouth of the Taunton River on Mount Hope Bay, and is recognizable for its pastoral open space, historic Trailways, five mile scenic coastline and busy commercial corridors along Route six, 118, and the I 195, Highway. In 2024, residents and town staff came together to update Swansea's comprehensive plan, a 10 year playbook designed to guide future planning decisions throughout the engagement process, residents explored the potential of creating a walkable, Main Street Style area with places to go out, to eat, shop and or stroll. A portion of route 103 near the Ocean Grove, neighborhood stood out in community conversations as an area with potential for this small scale neighborhood style development, the corridors proximity to the town Beach, existing commercial zoning and land use and a community wide sentiment To create safer road conditions, particularly between Pine Street and gardener's neck road. Encourage planning technicians and the town to take a closer look at route 103. Route 103 is a five mile long east to west state highway running from Warren, Rhode Island through Swansea and into Somerset, where the road then terminates at route six to further connect travelers to Fall River, the main commercial corridor of route 103 portion in Swansea, aka Wilbur AB is nestled between two scenic bridges and serves as commercial thoroughfare through the Ocean Grove, neighborhood, though local Swansea businesses exist in Ocean Grove. Much of route 103’s walkable Main Street type development potential has yet to be realized. This could be due to buildings in Ocean Grove with sizable front setbacks and large amounts of land dedicated to underutilized parking, frequent and large curb cuts that provide wide entries into these parking lots beyond what's necessary for a typical right- or left-hand vehicular turn. A significant portion of the road dedicated to an oversized and generally unused paved shoulder encouraging high speeds that often lead to increased traffic and crashes and limited pedestrian access to the town's waterfront and A generally loud and inaccessible pedestrian and bike experience you
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the comprehensive planning
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process included an exercise
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to get a sense of the community's vision for route 103.
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When presented with four potential options, survey respondents indicated a preference towards a pedestrian friendly commercial corridor near Ocean Grove with widened sidewalks and pedestrian amenities like light post benches and enhanced plantings.
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These community responses helped shape relevant recommendations and implementation strategies included in the final comprehensive plan, many of which pointed to further investigating ways Swansea could improve the route 103, corridor. Thanks to this feedback and earmarked funding from state senator Rodrigues, SRPEDD and the town of Swansea, were able to kick off a community focused corridor study in April of 2024 over the past year, staff have worked on researching existing conditions and consolidating feedback to create clear visualizations of the area, the route 103 corridor study project team now invites Swansea residents to help create a clear vision for potential development along Wilbur Ave. Of exploring the scale, form and style of buildings that could make this street a local destination, and studying the types of public realm enhancements the community supports to enhance the quality of life near and around ocean growth. Thank you for watching. If you would like to contribute any additional comments, please feel free to reach out to Maria Jones at mjones@serped.org or visit our project web page for more information.
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As we kick off this engagement
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process, we hope residents can reflect on their lived experience of route 103 as a driver, pedestrian or biker, ask yourself, do you feel safe traveling along the corridor in a car? How about on foot or on a bike? What other types of businesses would you like to see along Route 103
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How can we create a corridor unique to Swansea?
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We hope this video can serve to begin informing residents
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of the work ongoing,
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and hope to update it when the plan is finished. Thank you for watching.
