Islington Street Corridor Design Project

The preconstruction meeting for the Islington Street Reconstruction Project is on Thursday, April 25th, at 6:30 p.m. in the Levenson Room at the Portsmouth Public Library. All members of the public are invited to attend. City staff, along with the contractor, Severino Trucking, will be in attendance to discuss the project, the schedule, traffic control, and impacts during the project. Work on the project is expected to commence the first week in May.

The project area includes Islington Street from the Spinney Road area to Dover Street as well as Columbia Street and Columbia Court. Work will include replacement of all utilities (water sewer drain), roadway reconstruction, curbing and sidewalk installations, and landscaping improvements (ornamental lighting, street trees, benches, etc.) and will be a large step in the revitalization of the west end neighborhood. The goal of the public meeting will be to discuss anticipated impacts and expectations to local residents. 

The goal of this project is to create a "complete street" and will include improvements to the streetscape, traffic signals, utilities, bicycle/pedestrian facilities, transit and vehicular roadway. The streetscape improvements may include curb extensions and planted curb bump-outs, reduced curb cuts, crosswalk design, sidewalks, marked bus pull-over areas, ped amenities, re-aligned and improved intersections and other traffic calming measures.

The design incorporates the recommendations of previous and on-going planning studies such as the 2009 Islington Street Improvement Action Plan, 2014 Bicycle/Pedestrian Plan and the "character-based" zoning public charrette. Utility design includes the design of drinking water, sanitary sewer and storm drainage improvements, as well as utility coordination and design for natural gas, communications and electrical relocations of infrastructure. The design effort also includes improvements to parking and vehicular/pedestrian uses to determine proper lane widths, sidewalk widths, intersection designs and roadbed and pavement types and thicknesses.

The lead contact for this project is Eric Eby, the City's Parking and Transportation Engineer. Please contact him at (603) 766-1415 or ebeby@cityofportsmouth.com with any design comments or concerns. Comments will be coordinated with the City's consulting design engineering team led by VHB.