To the Editor:
I have read with some interest the several letters in this and the other local weekly that lash out at Wiscasset because of traffic backups in that village. I sympathize with the writers’ annoyance but they wrongly focus their anger. There is a widespread but false belief that Wiscasset has somehow prevented the construction of a Route One bypass. The facts are otherwise.
In 1970 the people of Wiscasset petitioned the State Highway Commission to build a bypass of Wiscasset. This resulted in the first bypass study completed in 1972. More studies followed.
A 1990 bypass referendum in eight Midcoast towns received 79 percent support in Wiscasset. A similar 2000 referendum received 77 percent approval. This overwhelming level of support started to slip when the Maine Dept. of Transportation in the most recent study began to look at expressways through Wiscasset instead of bypasses around the village. Not surprisingly a referendum in 2002 produced only 48 percent support for a bypass.
In 2008 Wiscasset and neighboring towns including Edgecomb, Alna and Newcastle agreed on a compromise bypass route that, although more of a throughway than Wiscasset wanted, was enough of a bypass to be acceptable. This compromise route was immediately adopted by MDOT as their preferred route.
Now here is the rub, and the thing that should invite your letter writers’ wrath. The Army Corps of Engineers, which has final approval over the bypass route, has said that it does not concern itself with the human environment and, short of overwhelming public support, it is not inclined to approve the compromise route because of effects on the natural environment.
This fall the Army Corps will invite public comment on whether to approve the compromise route preferred by MDOT. Those angry letter writers and all others who drive Rt. 1 through Wiscasset should take the time to write the Army Corps or attend their public hearings to express support for the compromise route, because if the compromise route is rejected, public opposition will in all likelihood prevent the construction of a bypass in the foreseeable future.
Tell the Army Corps to support the compromise. Let’s get the bypass approved and built now.
Donald Jones, Chairman
Wiscasset Transportation Committee
