By Dominik Lobkowicz
Costs to travelers and businesses, impacted emergency response times, and safety concerns are all points the Bremen Board of Selectmen plan to address in a plea to Governor Paul LePage to have the Department of Transportation fix issues on Route 32.
Bremen Project Manager Tom Kostenbader (right) measures a seven inch change in grade over a horizontal distance of roughly two feet on Route 32. (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
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Dips, pot-holes, ruts, and sections of pavement shifting vertically in relation to one another abound on Route 32 in Bremen, and are worse now due to the winter weather.
One area was so bad, a town official measured a seven inch drop from the main grade of the road over only about two horizontal feet.
“I would call it the most dangerous road in Lincoln County,” Selectman Hank Nevins said at the board’s meeting Feb. 20.
Bremen officials have been after the Department of Transportation to fix problems and improvement maintenance on Route 32 since at least last summer, but have found little satisfaction in the department’s response.
The selectmen made an unsuccessful request of the DOT last year to change the road’s classification in hopes that would change the maintenance, and the department’s 2014 to 2016 work plan currently contains no paving at all in Bremen.
Assisted by Bremen’s Assistant Project Manager Jack Clancy (kneeling), Project Manager Tom Kostenbader measures an over three-inch deep shift of pavement on Route 32. (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
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An agreement by the DOT last summer to shim uneven areas of pavement as a short-term fix remains unfulfilled, selectmen said.
At their meeting, the selectmen discussed how to move forward, even briefly discussing the extreme measure of closing the road to traffic or posting signs warning operators to drive at their own risk.
Nevins, a member of Bremen’s first responders, said the conditions of the road have gotten bad enough to affect the response time of emergency vehicles because they have to drive so slowly.
Selectman John “Boe” Marsh, who owns Community Shellfish LLC on Cora Cressey Road in Bremen, said one of the food service companies he deals with has refused to make the trip down Route 32 since November because of the road’s condition.
Normally the company would send a truck down once or twice a week, Marsh said, and now one of his employees has to make the 16 mile, hour-long round-trip to meet the truck in Waldoboro.
Community Shellfish’s prices are based on their product being picked up at their location, and Marsh said his company has to eat the cost of the mileage and lost productivity to make these trips.
Debby Newell, the head bus driver for Great Salt Bay Community School, said in an interview Feb. 25 that both of her bus drivers that pick up students in Bremen have been complaining about the conditions on Route 32.
“I know they have both complained that they can’t go more than 15 miles per hour,” Newell said.
Newell said the conditions have affected the timeliness of the buses arriving at the school because they have to travel so slowly, but the students are still making it to school on time.
A close-up look at one of the many vertical shifts in pavement on Route 32 in Bremen. (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
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On Feb. 24, Marsh, Nevins, Bremen Project Manager Tom Kostenbader, and Assistant Project Manager Jack Clancy went out on Route 32 to measure and photograph some of the issues with the road.
At their first stop, a Chevrolet Impala bottomed out on one of the dips as it drove by, even after slowing down considerably in the proximity of the men.
One roughly 80-foot-long section in the northbound lane had ruts that were up to four inches below the grade of the road’s crown and the crown between the two ruts.
Those ruts make it hard to plow, since the plow can only scrape the high parts, Nevins said.
Kostenbader said that particular area of the road also poses problems because water seeps directly out of the road in there and freezes, creating icy conditions.
The selectmen aim to send letters and photographs of the road’s conditions to LePage and to DOT Commissioner David Bernhardt, possibly through the town’s state representative, Ellen Winchenbach.
Winchenbach confirmed brief discussions with Nevins about the road, but said details of who is sending what have not been ironed out.
Winchenbach did say she has written her own letter to Gov. LePage and Bernhardt recommending the DOT look at Route 32 as a priority. She intends to send the letter along with photographs of the road, she said.
The selectmen are striving to have the DOT fix the road’s problems this year.
“Right now I feel it’s really dangerous, and it’s completely counter to any commercial use,” Marsh said. “It is unsafe.”
Nevins said he would challenge Bernhardt to ride Route 32 through Bremen at 45 miles per hour (the speed limit) while holding a cup of coffee in his hand.
“That’d be a good challenge for him,” Nevins said.