This week a meeting was held to discuss what the possible opportunities are for Pleasant Street in Northampton and how things can be improved to make it more pleasant. Pleasant Street was referred to as "A gate way yet to be developed." The meeting had a great turn out and the community did not shy away from voicing that they would like Pleasant Street to feel more like a street or a road, not a highway. It was stressed that it will take time to achieve all the challenges up ahead, but now seems like a better time than ever to touch on topics that the community feels could make a difference.

"A master plan is a big city wide process in great detail, this is much more what we call a strategic plan. We are not going to identify every issue on Pleasant Street we are basically going to look at what are the things we can make an impact on." commented one community member.

It was twelve years ago when Pleasant Street was looked at last so the meeting focused in on getting groups together to spark discussions and gather everyone's creativity for ideas on moving forward.

Ideas such as where crosswalks should be, additional signage, passenger rail coming in and building a round-a-bout into the city, adding parks and apartments are just a few of the topics touched on, no ideas to big or to small. Within those twelve years downtown has been expanding, the Mill River was cleaned of any toxic waste and made lively again, but Pleasant Street is still in the long process of feeling more like a street as opposed to a highway.