The Wiscasset Board of Selectmen will meet with representatives of the Department of Transportation and the town of Newcastle Tuesday, May 5 to discuss the weight limit on Federal Street.
The section of Federal Street (Route 218) from Route 1 to West Alna Road has a 6,000-pound weight limit. A group of Newcastle residents wants the department to either raise the weight limit, remove it, or impose the same limit on Sheepscot Road.
The group objects to the Federal Street weight limit because they say it forces dump trucks on their way from a Whitefield gravel pit to points south to detour across Sheepscot Road to Route 1.
The trucks create noise and safety concerns, according to Sheepscot Road residents. Neighborhood resident Angelo Pappagallo originally brought the issue to the Newcastle Board of Selectmen in July 2012.
A group of Sheepscot Road residents led by Pappagallo petitioned the Department of Transportation, Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett, and the town of Newcastle to take action on the matter in January 2014.
The Newcastle selectmen agreed to sign a letter of support for the petition.
The former Harry C. Crooker & Sons Inc. supports the request to lift the weight limit, according to an April 24, 2014 email from then-Chief Engineer Thomas Sturgeon to a Department of Transportation official. The business, now Crooker Construction LLC, owns the gravel pit in Whitefield.
The Department of Transportation has declined to adjust the weight limit.
“We have determined there is insufficient data available to us at this time to consider posting Sheepscot Road or removing the posting on Federal Street,” Region 2 Traffic Engineer David Allen said in an April 28, 2014 letter to Newcastle Town Administrator Lynn Maloney. “We will, however, monitor traffic conditions along Route 218, Sheepscot Road, and other affected roads within the area over the summer, after which we will reassess the situation.”
The letter gives some insight into the decision to post the road in January 2002.
“I believe the proximate locations of the Wiscasset primary and middle schools along Federal Street (Route 218) and the general condition of Route 218 at that time were among the considerations in that determination,” Allen said.
The department has since conducted a survey of truck traffic on the roads, according to Maloney. The results of the survey were not available from the town. Maloney referred inquiries to a department official, who did not respond to an interview request.
Maloney said the department recently indicated that it would not lift the weight limit on Federal Street unless it receives a request from the town of Wiscasset to do so.
Tuesday’s meeting will start at 7 p.m. in the Wiscasset municipal building.
