Now is the time to plan for the future of Standish, according to Councilor Terence Christy.
“It took 50 years for the bypass to come through Gorham; it’ll be at least four years to get something in Standish. Let’s take care of it now,” he said at Tuesday’s council workshop.
The culmination of more than three months’ work, Christy’s presentation included six recommendations to improve the safety and accessibility of roadways in the eastern quadrant of Standish Village and the intersection of Route 25 and Oak Hill Road.
With strong advice to the council to contact the state for supplemental funds, Christy supplied the council with a draft of a letter to the commissioner of the Maine Department of Transportation requesting planning funds, in the form of a grant.
This money, combined with money from the town, would be used to conduct a joint Route 25 corridor management study that would evaluate “existing and proposed curb cuts, turning movements and intersection alignments” from Gorham to Standish Village.
The committee also obtained two quotes from Gorrill-Palmer Consulting Engineers, Inc. in Gray. Coming in at $3,475, the first, an intersection study, would encompass the intersections of routes 25 and 35 and of Route 25 and Oak Hill Road.
The second, quoted at the same price, would be an access management study for the portion of Route 25 between the Gorham line and Route 35.
The purpose of these studies is for the town to have a plan in place to guide them in future development while protecting public safety and traffic flow.
“We feel very strongly about the urgency of this project,” Christy said. “We’re putting our money where our mouths are.”
Christy’s next recommendation involved roadway development. By adopting roads 1 and 2 as marked on the Standish zoning map, the committee intends to alleviate traffic congestion in anticipation of an influx of traffic at the completion of the Gorham bypass.
Although accepting these range roads would cause minimal impact to residential areas, the town would notify abutters and hold a public hearing prior to the council vote.
Another component of the committee’s roadway plan is the need to change ordinances to support the land use map and recommendations from the access management study.
Christy advised the council that the town needed to look at the entire set of ordinances to “bring them up to date.”
Council Chair Cindy Hopkins acknowledged that an overhaul of the ordinances had been “put on hold” until after the Comprehensive Plan had been updated. The council is scheduled to vote on the new plan at their June 6 meeting.
The last section of the committee’s proposal presented a funding strategy to carry out its recommendations.
Christy proposed the town use the $7,000 from the town’s contingency fund for the intersection and access management studies. For roadway development, he advised the councilors to add $12,000 to next year’s budget. This would cover the cost of the actual monumentation, or survey benchmarks.
For the $8,500 the committee estimated for land use planning, Christy suggested the council use the $6,800 from the dedicated reserve, left over from the town’s contract with the Greater Portland Council of Governments and make up the additional $1,700 from the FY2006 economic development finds.
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