To the Editor:
The gravel truck issue is back! Unfortunately, the glaciers piled gravel north of the Boothbay and Pemaquid peninsulas, so gravel will be trucked from Whitefield to both areas.
Each town on the way needs to deal with that traffic. Wiscasset has a nice agreement with the gravel truckers. They detour over Huntoon Hill to Route 27 where there is a large safe intersection with Route 1. We appreciate the extra effort the truckers make by taking the detour. For now, Federal Street houses, sitting on clay, only shake when the errant logging truck goes by.
However, Federal Street, as it is, is not a safe road: many houses are within a few feet of the road, creating blind driveways; oil delivery trucks park in the road; people cross the street to fetch newspapers and mail; and children play on the sidewalks. Add two school zones, darkness, snow/ice and distracted speeders and we have a marginally safe road as it is. Again, we appreciate the detour arrangement with the truckers.
We have heard the state will discontinue aid to Federal Street, which is also Route 218, so the state will have no authority to turn Federal Street into a gravel truck route. Either way, both Wiscasset and Newcastle have roads with heavy gravel truck traffic.
There is nothing inherently “unfair” about this. Both towns need to find ways to calm and control the truck traffic. If Newcastle were to close its roads to gravel trucks, it would still make sense to send them on the Wiscasset detour, but truckers would surely like to use the Sheepscot Road to access the Pemaquid Peninsula.
As Morrison Bonpasse (a resident of Newcastle) points out, it is simply much, much shorter than going through Wiscasset.
