Lenox — Gov. Maura Healey and state officials from her administration met with Berkshire County officials at Town Hall on Tuesday, March 18.
The event was part of Gov. Healey’s “Transforming Transportation Roadshow,” during which she has toured the state to promote her proposed $8 billion transportation plan and Chapter 90 bill, which were both filed as legislation in January.
As part of the Chapter 90 bill, Gov. Healey proposes $300 million in Chapter 90 funds for municipalities annually for the next five years. The administration has stated that this is the largest investment the state has ever made in funding for local roads and sidewalks. The state’s Chapter 90 program started in 2012 and has been funded at $200 million annually, except for an increase in 2015, and increases in 2023 and 2024 through the Fair Share surtax.
Gov. Healey promoted the bills at Lenox Town Hall in an event featuring several Berkshire County-based municipal representatives, along with Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver, and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper.
“I’m somebody who grew up in a small town in New Hampshire and a rural community,” Gov. Healey said. “As governor, I’ve said from the outset that we need to do a better job as a state of making sure we take care of Berkshire County and western Massachusetts. Over time, this state has not invested what it should in Berkshire County. [Our administration] is different, and we came in as an administration with a commitment to [invest in Berkshire County].”
Gov. Maura emphasized that the bills, if passed, will result in “more money to Berkshire County towns and cities for roads, bridges, culvert repairs, and general infrastructure.”
Berkshire County municipal allocations under Gov. Healey’s proposed Chapter 90 bond bill:
“We heard loud and clear that municipal officials are working hard to keep up with extreme weather, but you need help,” said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Tepper. “Our roads and bridges and culverts were all built decades ago, and many are not ready for the weather we are experiencing today or will be facing tomorrow. We know the extreme rainfall we saw in 2023. That [rainfall] could become eight times more likely at the end of the century due to climate change. Making these investments today is a down payment on our future. Resilient infrastructure reduces the costly repairs for our local leaders and helps our local economies grow.”
Tepper emphasized that culverts are a major infrastructure concern in Berkshire County. “Whenever a road causes a stream, there’s a culvert, and many of them are over 50 years old and undersized,” Tepper said. “They’re designed for the weather of the past, not the future. When they fail, it can lead to flooding that disrupts lives, closes roads, impacts schools, and threatens public safety.”
“[Chapter 90] is important for communities in the Berkshires,” said Lenox Town Manager Jay Green. “My previous community [Adams] relied on Chapter 90 money for many different items to the point where we almost depleted [our allocation] every year because we purchased equipment, we paved roads, and we paid for engineering. It’s a diverse and flexible program, but we felt that, as municipal officials and [Department of Public Works] staff, it was starting to get stale.”
Green spoke about participating in the Chapter 90 Advisory Group made up of other municipal officials across the state. “This administration listened [to the Chapter 90 Advisory Group],” Green said. “We are humbled that they heard our concerns and implemented [the bills] in a very short period, and for that, we are very grateful. Being in public service, we often talk about how much money we spend on engineering reports and design, or a master plan, and they sit on the shelf and we don’t act on them. This time, [the plans developed by the group] didn’t sit on the shelf.”
When asked about the troubles Great Barrington residents are facing as a result of the Brookside Road Bridge closure, State Highway Administrator Gulliver said that the governor’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget would help fund a replacement bridge. “That bridge was planned to be a repair or preservation project,” Gulliver said. “It was [originally] a lower price [for the project]. However, we discovered that the bridge was not at a point where repair would be feasible because it had deteriorated. This is not unique to Great Barrington because it happens all over Massachusetts. When we start getting into projects, we discover things that were not apparent when we first did our inspections.”
According to Gulliver, Gov. Healey’s fiscal 2026 budget allocates $1.5 billion for bridges. “It is crucial to have money to help us address issues like you’re experiencing in Great Barrington,” Gulliver said. “It will allow us to have a pool of money directly to pay for structurally deficient bridge projects, especially closed bridges.”
