The Wiscasset Board of Selectmen has voted to partner with property owners and Maine Dept. of Transportation to resolve issues identified in a Road Safety Audit.
The Oct. 2 vote followed a Sept. 26 meeting at Wiscasset Middle School where Gerry Audibert, a special projects engineer for the DOT reviewed a list of potential strategies with representatives from Wiscasset, Edgecomb, and Lincoln County.
The list is the result of a June 4 audit of safety and traffic issues on Rt. 1. The audit was performed by DOT employees and representatives from Wiscasset and Edgecomb, Audibert said.
After the Rt. 1 bypass study was completed, the state recognized issues still exist in the area, but funding is scarce and there is competition with other state needs, said Audibert.
The groups “took a ‘what’s wrong with this picture’ look” at different locations along Rt. 1 and identified issues they could spot, said Audibert.
The list is intended to be an exhaustive collection of the issues and suggestions from the June 4 audit, but the DOT did not support researching solutions for all items on the list, Audibert said.
Comments included on the list addressed the reasons for withholding support.
The items were ranked either short-, mid-, or long-term for the time line of their implementation. Audibert said short-term items would be completed by this time next year, mid-term within 2-4 years, and long-term items would be beyond the 4 year time frame.
Audibert said the short-term actions would be performed with or without endorsement from the towns, but that the DOT does not want to spend money investigating mid- and long-term projects that towns have no interest in, said Audibert.
For that reason, Audibert was looking for endorsements from the towns on the lists of strategies by Fri., Oct. 5, he said.
Audibert emphasized at the meeting, the endorsement is not of the solutions themselves, but rather the investigation of outcomes those solutions would bring.
Edgecomb will not be able to vote on the list until their meeting on Oct. 22, said Edgecomb Selectman Stuart Smith.
The DOT will be using a traffic model of Wiscasset’s village area to determine what can and cannot be done, Audibert said. In that area, any change to one factor has an affect on the others, he said.
Wiscasset Town Manager Laurie Smith expressed concerned that the DOT would not support repainting a crosswalk on Rt. 1 where it intersects with Lee Street and Bradford Road.
“We have people who have a healthy lifestyle and want to walk” in the area that would be served by a crosswalk at that location, said Wiscasset Town Manager Laurie Smith.
Audibert said the DOT doesn’t “want to put in a crosswalk to encourage crossing in an unsafe spot.” There is no sidewalk to receive the crosswalk from Lee Street and it’s against DOT policy to put in a crosswalk if there is not a receiving way on both sides, he said.
Lincoln County Planner Bob Faunce suggested that a sidewalk could be added from Bradford Road to the Wiscasset Municipal Building, but Audibert said “We can’t just go put in a sidewalk,” adding there are a number of steps in the process.
Audibert said he had spoken to several other DOT officials and the answer on the crosswalk is “resoundingly ‘no’ for now. I will check back into it.”
