We think downtown Wiscasset business owners have a legitimate gripe about the Maine Department of Transportation’s plan to install a stoplight at the intersection of Main Street (Route 1) and Gardiner Road (Route 27) in Wiscasset.
Charlotte Boynton’s front-page story quotes a DOT traffic engineer who says the department does not believe the light will slow traffic, and it might make things a little better.
We find it difficult to imagine how this could be so. Right now, Route 1 traffic does not have to stop or even slow at the Route 27 intersection. There are turning lanes in both directions.
From many years of experience, we know the steep hill of Wiscasset’s Main Street represents the promised land for southbound motorists in July and August.
We wait in our cars for what can seem like an eternity as the traffic crawls through Edgecomb, up the hill by Skip Cahill, down the hill to swallow a few more motorists from Boothbay Road, across Davis Island to the homestretch of Davey Bridge. All the while, we take comfort in one thing: make it to the train tracks and we’re home free.
A traffic light at the intersection of Main Street and Gardiner Road would extend the logjam up the hill to Gardiner Road; probably back toward Edgecomb and Newcastle too. Northbound motorists will also face a new obstacle.
We recognize the problems with the Gardiner Road intersection. A lefthand turn onto Route 1 in midsummer can be daunting, and the intersection can be dangerous at any time of year.
We avoid this scenario during the summer, as we avoid the Edgecomb-Wiscasset traffic whenever we can. We know many locals use the same unofficial bypass routes.
These are temporary solutions, however. A stoplight for the Gardiner Road intersection seems inevitable, but we think other improvements should come first.
The Wiscasset traffic is not only an inconvenience, it is an economic development issue for Lincoln County. The gridlock presents a major impediment to the economic lifeline of Lincoln County – our summer visitors.
The state should try to solve, or at least alleviate, this gridlock before it shifts focus to the Gardiner Road intersection.
Greater minds than ours have been looking for an answer to the Wiscasset traffic problem for many years. We do not claim to have the answer, but we like the idea of a pedestrian bridge in the vicinity of Red’s Eats to start.
The $600,000-plus the state plans to spend on sidewalks and a traffic light might make a good start toward the design and construction of a pedestrian bridge.
