Story by Evan Lips elips@lowellsun.com

Lowell Sun News – Imagine a town center where you didn’t have to turn south on Concord Road to head north on Boston Road.

A town center with two-way traffic on Boston Road, a sidewalk linking the common to the Shops at Billerica and a traffic pattern with three sets of signals instead of seven.

Selectmen asked a Rhode Island engineering firm to come up with a few new concepts for the future of the town center, and last night they got a good look.

The board voted unanimously to send one of the two conceptual designs to the Traffic Management Committee, which will begin hosting public discussion forums later this winter. The Historic Districts Commission will also have a say.

The concept calls for turning the section of Concord Road between Blanchard Avenue and Andover Road into a one-way, northbound road with about 25 parking spaces abutting the common and a raised crosswalk in front of the library. Andover Road would have a dedicated left-turn lane for traffic to head south on Boston Road.

Kien Ho, a Beta Group traffic engineer, said the proposal “simplifies the volume of traffic into one main line,” Boston Road.

Beta Group Associate Darshan Jhaveri said the changes would make the common as accessible as it is during the Christmas-tree lighting while also improving traffic. But the plan would also reduce the number of parking spaces on Boston Road from about 15 to about seven.

Turning the concept into reality won’t be cheap. Town Manager John Curran said last night that initial estimates call for about $14 million. But he added that these are the types of projects that can be completed by towns with level debt. Last fall, Town Meeting voted to transfer $1.4 million in free cash to the town’s debt stabilization fund.

Curran said the fund “helps preserve the tax rate the way it is” and noted that between $2 and $4 million could be available from the state’s MassWorks Infrastructure Program. Improving the town center, he added, will also “add value to the whole area.”

The Traffic Management Committee will meet Monday at 7 p.m. to review the design, but public hearings have not yet been scheduled.