Attentiveness and courtesy are the only reasons traffic moves at all during the summer in downtown Damariscotta and Newcastle.
How many times lately have you seen a driver staring down at their phone and tapping away? We see it regularly while walking around downtown Damariscotta or waiting at the three-way intersection near our office in Newcastle. Get a grip, people! On the steering wheel! Put down your phone!
Or how many times have you seen an impatient driver ignore their fellow motorists attempting to enter Main Street from the side streets downtown, only to stop in traffic immediately after the side street? Do you really think being one car length closer to your destination will make a difference?
This brings us to the issue of the Colby & Gale driveway on Main Street in downtown Damariscotta, which you can read about on page 2.
We know the Colby & Gale driveway looks tempting – so wide and conveniently near the center of Main Street, with long sightlines to either side.
By contrast, the proper entrances and exits to the municipal parking lot are less than ideal.
You can exit onto Water Street, but if you then want to turn left onto Main Street, you might wait the rest of the summer for a break in traffic due to the intersection’s proximity to the traffic light at Bristol Road.
(Fortunately many of our neighbors are polite enough to wave a car onto Main Street from time to time, preventing complete gridlock.)
You can exit on the opposite end of the lot, between the fish market and the jewelry shop, as long as claustrophobia isn’t a concern.
We cross our fingers every time we go in and out of the lot on this side. It looks too narrow to fit two hybrids, let alone a truck with a trailer or one of the many delivery trucks going in and out of the lot.
Maybe one of these days we will go downtown and find two trucks wedged into the spot. It will make a nice photo for the paper.
Again, it’s a good thing most folks around here are polite enough to defer to another car (and a good thing most of us remember our defensive-driving skills well enough to avoid the drivers who don’t defer to anyone.)
So the Colby & Gale driveway sits seductively in the middle of the lot and can seem like a safe alternative. But it’s not.
The driveway is private property, and with two new businesses on one side, has more pedestrian traffic than before – including little ones distracted by ice cream cones.
Downtown is enough of a logjam this time of year without cars racing in and out of a private drive on Main Street.
Let’s be good neighbors and responsible drivers and keep downtown safe for motorists and pedestrians.
