Summer Street in Bath will become one-way on May 22, open to traffic headed from Washington Street to Front Street. The elbow at the intersection of Summer and Washington streets will eventually be removed. Linden Street will also become a one-way street. (Darcie Moore / The Times Record)
BATH — Two streets in Bath will be converted to one-way traffic next week, allowing the city to put in 26 new parking spots.
Starting May 22, Linden and Summer Streets at either side of Patten Free Library, between Washington and Front Streets, will become one-way. Traffic will travel west on Linden Street from Front Street to Washington Street; and east on Summer Street from Washington Street to Front Street.
The four-hour parking spots will all be adjacent to the library.
City Planner Ben Averill said the town made the switch in part to address safety concerns. Visibility is limited turning from Summer Street left onto Washington Street, for example.
“It may be a little bit of a change, where there will be some getting used to things,” Averill said.
The library supports the move to one-way streets.
“I’m actually very pleased,” Lesley Dolinger, director of Patten Free Library, said of the changes. “There are many times during the day and year when we are short on parking, so that will definitely benefit the library to provide more parking spaces for our patrons.”
The library, built in 1890 and expanded in 1998, doesn’t have its own parking lot. The parking lot near the library by City Park belongs to the city, Dolinger said. With an elderly population among the communities the library served, some of its patrons can’t walk very far.
“We know there are people who turn around and go back,” she said.
The library had more than 170,000 visits last year. When there are events like the AARP tax help, “you can never find a spot,” Dolinger said.
Parking is also sparse during summer children’s programs and on school vacation weeks. The need for parking is a real issue, one that Dolinger said she’s communicated to city council members on more than one occasion.
Bath Police Chief Mike Field serves on the Transportation Committee and said the city hopes through various public outreach efforts to educate everyone about the changes and to avoid dangers the traffic pattern changes could present.
“We also believe that the majority of current traffic goes in the direction of the new one-way traffic that’s coming,” he said.
The push for additional parking in Bath isn’t new. Last year the city added 25 new parking spots along Commercial Street and the other end of Summer Street.
“We have identified in the city that parking is a challenge not just downtown but elsewhere, so we have been working over the last couple years to determine what makes the most amount of sense,” Averill said.
The city plans to initiate a master planning effort later this year, “and so that will hopefully help us try to figure out where we’re going, do we have the appropriate amount of spaces, is there a way to either better utilize the spaces we have or should we think about something else,” he said.
That work should wrap up in late 2019 or early 2020, he said.
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