Stoughton

and strengthening of the local tax base, as- suring the provision of convenient access to goods and services for residents, and fostering appropriate and quality development and rede- velopment of commercial and industrial land and properties. Some of the Plan’s goals for the town’s downtown area include: increasing and improv- ing active retail businesses as ground floor uses; supporting housing and offices on upper floors; creating beautiful public gathering spaces; provid- ing adequate, accessible, and safe parking to meet the needs of businesses, residents, and visitors; and creating traffic and pedestrian patterns that promote safety and accessibility. Marc Tisdelle is Stoughton’s Town Engineer. Part of his responsibility is ensuring that the town’s roads and pedestrian walkways adhere to the Master Plan’s vision. So, finding the appropriate funding to make the necessary improvements has been a major priority.“We’ve been trying to apply for state grants,”he says,“but in order to get these grants,we had to become what they call a ‘Complete Streets’ community. So, our politicians, our Board of Selectmen, our department heads, the residents -all had to buy on to establishing a STOUGHTON, MASSACHUSETTS Complete Streets policy. Complete Streets are for everybody, not just vehicles.They’re designed and operated to enable safe access for all users–pe- destrians, bicyclists,motorists, transit riders, etc. Complete Streets make it easy to cross the street, walk to shops, bicycle to work.We formed a trans- portation task force that generated the policy.The policy got approved by the Board of Selectmen, and we got ranked number 9 in the entire nation in 2015 for one of the best Complete Street poli- cies.That led us to apply for a grant in 2016 with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT) to construct about 4,000 linear feet of sidewalk, near a school district.The grant was for $400,000 and the project is under construction, now.We’re the first community in Massachusetts to apply for, and receive, the grant. So, we’re pret- ty happy and proud about that.” In addition, Stoughton is also a recipient of Massachusetts’s Transportation Improvement Program,which has provided funding for several other road and traffic projects in town.“If a proj-