LINCOLN, Maine — Reginald Theriault of Enfield thinks that the main stretch of West Broadway in Lincoln has more traffic problems than Stillwater Avenue in Bangor.
Traffic on West Broadway “is bogged right down,” the 83-year-old volunteer picker and clerk at the Stone Wall Farms market on West Broadway said Monday. “Here you have long traffic lines and trucks that go right on through. At least there [Stillwater] they have turning lanes. It’s too much for Lincoln.”
Holly Russell sees other problems with the road. The business owner says traffic turning onto West Broadway from her Razor’s Edge hair salon can be blinded to oncoming traffic when vehicles park along the outer edge of her parking lot.
That’s why Russell and Theriault are happy that preliminary work has begun on a $1.8 million widening of part of West Broadway. With the road project due to finish in fall 2016, James W. Sewall Co. engineers have begun surveying the placement of culverts, utility poles, fire hydrants and other utilities to determine what needs to be moved as part of the widening. Construction of a center turning lane from the Hannaford supermarket lot to Penobscot Valley Avenue will occur through summer 2016, said Town Manager Ron Weatherbee.
The project covers about a mile of West Broadway, one of the town’s main business arteries, and will effectively free about 254 acres of land for development while making the road safer, officials said.
“The first and foremost thing is safety on West Broadway,” Town Council Chairman Steve Clay said Monday. “We have a traffic count of 10,000 to 15,000 vehicles a day [on the road], and I think this will make it a little bit safer for people coming out of businesses and getting onto West Broadway.”
Desiree Macalino, a nail technician at Razor’s Edge, says she sees traffic swerve almost into the cemetery along West Broadway to get around vehicles waiting to turn from the westbound lane into the shopping plaza where she works.
“People get rear-ended sometimes,” Macalino said. “With a new turning lane, at least they will have somewhere safe to go. At least it will be safer here.”
The road widening will also broaden Lincoln’s appeal as a service hub and significantly lessen road impact fees businesses must pay to move onto West Broadway by making room for increased traffic. The impact fees, town officials said, have been a major impediment to further growth along West Broadway and have effectively scared off some business investment in Lincoln.
The project will have no effect on the town’s property tax rate, officials have said.
Town leaders hope to use tax-increment financing money and road impact fees levied to businesses that would move onto the road to pay $1.2 million. The Maine Department of Transportation will pay $600,000. Town Council members were due to meet Monday night to decide whether to approve a bond totaling $1.2 million.
Sewall Co. engineers briefed businesses and landowners along West Broadway about the project on Thursday. The owners seemed comfortable with how things were going, Weatherbee said.
Sewall Co. representatives did not immediately return phone calls on Monday.