Concerned citizens, a majority of them business owners, present at Thursday's public hearing about a proposed Cranberry Highway reconstruction project had just one answer when told that the project would not go forward if the town didn't want it.

"We don't want it!" they exclaimed in unison.

The highway project would widen and reconstruct the highway from where Routes 6 and 28 intersect just west of Cranberry Plaza to the Bourne town line.

The project has been discussed since 1977, said Joseph Magni, project manager for VHB, the company designing the project.

Designs include widening the highway from the current 56 feet to 70 feet, and constructing a 6-foot wide and 4-inch high median, adding 4-feet-wide shoulders accessible to bikes, and 5-and-a-half-foot-wide sidewalks on both sides of the road.

The project is aimed at making the roadway safer, said Carrie Lavallee, project manager with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

"It's a high-crash location … a tremendous amount of them are left-turn crashes," she said.

The estimated cost for the project, separate from the design, is $13.5 million dollars. The state would pay for 20% of the project, while the federal government would pay for 80%. The town is not responsible for any cost of the project construction.

Business owners took special issue with the median, feeling that in some sections it was so long that customers would simply skip their business, rather than travel the distance to make the necessary U-turn.

At one section of the proposed design, from Walmart in Cranberry Plaza to Main Avenue and Sand Pond Road further east, the median is designed to go approximately 1.4 miles without any break.

"It's a one-way to and from the Cape. People are just not going to stop anymore," said Jim Abdu from Upper Cape Realty. "We see this as strangling us."

The design of the project is 25% complete. The design is set to be completed and the project ready for construction by March of 2016. Construction is slated to last until October of 2018.

Magni said that the construction would take place in the daytime with the least impact on traffic as possible. He said the Selectmen had suggested doing construction during off-peak hours, and if that was feasible within the project's budget, it would be done.

But business owners believed that the construction would negatively impact their businesses.

"The businesses are going to suffer tremendously from the daytime construction," said Marc Bianco, a construction professional.

The state also needs to acquire land from business owners on both sides of the road in order to complete the expansion. Business owners will be compensated in some fashion for their loss, but some would rather have what is already there.

Cheri Lindsey, the owner of Lindsey's Family Restaurant on Cranberry Highway, said after the meeting that those areas next to the road are used for parking, signage, and many other necessary uses.

"The businesses won't survive this construction," she said. "They're hardly surviving now."

Business owners also suggested that the proposed project wouldn't do much for safety.

Some argued that the median would actually encourage pedestrians to cross, since they now had a safe island in the middle of the road. Others said that decreasing the speed limit or increasing police presence would be a more reasonable approach.

Others simply said that accidents would always happen.

"There's always going to be a fatality," said Lindsey during the meeting.

Lindsey clarified after the meeting that she did not think the state's approach to safety was going to work.

"I don't think it's going to save lives," she said. "There are still going to be accidents because people drive fast, they drive high, and people run across the street."

Business owners also took the opportunity to make suggestions to the project which they believed were more reasonable.

Some suggested that instead of a median, a left-turn-only lane be created in both directions to help customers reach businesses.

Others suggested that they eliminate one sidewalk, arguing that people do not walk along Cranberry Highway.

Lavallee responded — and repeated multiple times during the hearing — that the very purpose of the meeting was to hear those kinds of suggestions.

"We're going to go back and look at it," Lavallees said after the meeting. "We have to take into account what the public wants."

The state currently owns Cranberry Highway, but officials have previously said that they would prefer the town to take ownership of the road after project completion, in which case the town would be responsible for maintaining the road.

Lavallee said that even if the town refuses to take over the road, it would not necessarily stop the state from completing the project.

He added that if the town does not want the project, the money could not be diverted to other town projects. It would be put back into a general fund to be used for other regional projects.

The public can make statements to be included in an official transcript of the meeting. Mailed statements must be postmarked within ten business days of the July 12 hearing and sent to Thomas F. Broderick, P.E., Chief Engineer, MassDOT, 10 Park Plaza, Boston, MA 02116, Attention: Project Management Section, Project File No. 117106.

Project details are also available online at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation website. For details, click here.