BLANDFORD -- Hilltown residents Monday seemed to favor the current Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90) rest area in Blandford as the site for a new exit between Westfield and Lee.

But even as their neighbors voted in an informal straw poll during a forum set up by the state Department of Transportation at Blandford Town Hall, some in this rural corner of the state said they'd rather the matter be dropped entirely and the highway left as is.

"I want to know what is going to happen to all that traffic once it gets off the highway. How are all these cars going to be dispersed on rural country roads?" said Bob Hirsch of Becket. "You are bringing a lot of traffic through the Berkshires and that isn't good.

Joyce Labonte and her husband, Jay, live in Chicopee most of the time, but have enjoyed a summer home on Watson Pond in Otis for decades. Joyce Labonte said they can barely hear the hum of highway traffic through the woods. They don't want that traffic to get any closer.

"Its a narrow country road, which is why we came up here," Labonte said. "It would change the character of life from rural to busy traffic trying to get on the exchange."

Hundreds of folks came out Monday to Blandford Town Hall to hear the latest on the MassDOT process of determining if a highway exit is feasible and, if so, where to put it.

So far, the state's been meeting with people and looking at locations while collecting traffic data, said Cassandra Gascon, transportation program planner with MassDOT.

She said her group would have a report by December. That report will say if an exit is feasible and where the best spot would be.

Monday night, folks were given three stickers and told to vote for their favorite three out of the following seven potential exit locations:

Loose Tooth Road, Becket

Werden Road, Becket

Johnson road, Becket

Algerie Road, Becket

Blanford Highway Maintenance Area

Blandford Rest Area

Route 23, Blandford, which intercepts the interstate very near the Woronoco Heights section of Westfield

The former Massachusetts Turnpike Authority bought a property on Route 23 in Blandford in December 1988 with plans to build an exit there, and there is state-owned land at the maintenance depot and at the rest area.

The advent of electronic tolling on the Mass Pike in 2017 makes it easier and economical to create new exits. Cars and trucks are no longer charged at toll booths but by overhead gantries that read E-Z Pass transponders or photograph licence plates. The state has removed booths at exits and toll plazas.

MassPike Exit 2 in the Berkshire County town of Lee is nearly 30 miles away from Exit 3 in Westfield. It's too great a distance, boosters say, for travelers to easily access hilltowns like Chester, Russell or Huntington. The current setup also leads to traffic snarls in Westfield as trucks rumble through downtown and west on Route 20 to reach areas that would be more easily accessible from an exit in Blandford or elsewhere.

On the Berkshire County side, drivers get off the interstate at Lee and then snake through its downtown on their way north to Pittsfield, Williamstown or Adams.

State Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, D-Lenox, helped get his fellow legislators to put a line item in the proposed state budget requiring MassDOT to study the potential new exit.

He was in Blandford Monday night going over topographic maps and continuing to lobby.

"It's great to see all the work that's been done," he said. "I've been working on this for 15 years. It's good to see there might finally be some progress."

He said the hilltowns and the Berkshires need better access to the outside world. An exit would bring jobs, residents and economic development, he said.

Blandford resident Jeff Bacon said his town needs a boost. Homes go unsold, the population is falling and property taxes are rising because people can't live in here if they can't get to work.

"It would save my wife at least 20 minutes a day from her commute into Springfield," he said.

John Piper of Blandford said those who want to stay isolated need to take a longer view.

"It's this idea of 'This is my corner of heaven and I don't want anybody else here,'" he said. "But if you aren't growing, your dying."