SOUTH PORTLAND – You may want to give yourself a little extra time this summer if you plan to travel Broadway in South Portland. Both ends of the city’s main thoroughfare will be subject to paving projects that could slow down traffic for most of the summer.
“There could be some detours, and the standard flaggers, too,” said City Manager Jim Gailey last week. “We’re still in the planning process for this. We know what we want to do but we need to develop out finished plans and then we’ll put information out there so that people aren’t caught off guard.”
“It’s all in discussion right now,” said Denis Lovely, a project manager for the Maine Department of Transportation.
On Tuesday, Lovely said traffic counting is under way to determine the least disruptive work times, although night work may be off the table because of residential nature of the neighborhoods in question.
On the east end of Broadway, the Maine Department of Transportation plans an $814,000 project to resurface the road with a 3/4-inch overlay 1.12 miles from Cottage Road to Pickett Street. Work is expected to start in June or July.
On the west end, work is slated to begin in August to grind and repave Broadway from Lincoln Street to Cash Corner. Lovely described the job as “a mill and fill,” in which workers will grind off one-half inch of pavement and lay down a fresh half-inch.
The Portland Water District plans to replace old water mains on Broadway this summer in the area of Fellows and Dawson streets, while the city hopes to replace sidewalks. In 2014, state crews will resume work, conducting a mill and fill from Cash Corner to Prides Road, for a total resurfacing of 1.4 miles at $611,000.
“We’d just as soon have the water district’s trenchwork settle for the year before we pave, that’s why we’re doing that end in two parts,” said Lovely.
The west end work is a federal project, meaning there will be no cost to local taxpayers, said Lovely. The east end work is an initiative of the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System. As such, most of the cost will still be picked up by the feds, but the city has an $86,437 match to cover, as well as any cost overruns.
Once the east end work is done, South Portland plans to paint a bicycle lane down the center of the road. That will necessarily push traffic to the edges of the road, to what is now the shoulder area.
Patti Smith, who serves as council liaison to the city’s bicycle/pedestrian committee, said the group recommended a center bike lane for safety. If the bike lanes were on the outside edges of the road, she said, impatient drivers might hit riders as they swing around vehicles waiting to make left-hand turns.
The bike lane is a committee initiative to both facilitate greater user of alternative transportation in the city, as well as to alleviate the concerns of residents about the speed of vehicles on Broadway between Cottage Road and the Southern Maine Community College campus.
According to Steve Sawyer, a traffic engineer with Sebago Technics, adding a bike lane will narrow the travel lanes for vehicles, creating a psychological effect on drivers, causing most to drive slower.
There was concern based on testing that the shoulders might need an additional $87,000 in reinforcement work, a cost that would have been borne by the city.
“MDOT’s feeling was that the shoulders as they are now might not hold up to long-term traffic,” said Gailey.
However, on Tuesday, Gailey said the original plan to excavate down 18 inches to lay fresh gravel might be unnecessary.
“At this time they’ve determined that additional shoulder work is not needed,” he said. “But they will do more study in May.”
While public works crew may not be called on to rebuild the east end shoulders, they will be pressed into service to construct sidewalks on the west end.
The city’s Community Development Advisory Committee is expected to have $429,560 in block grant money to dole out this year, and Gailey has asked for $130,000 to install paved sidewalks with concrete curbing on Broadway from Cash Corner to Glen Way.
“We’re going to be stretching the dollars, so we’re looking at doing that in-house,” said Gailey.
The city experimented last year with concrete sidewalk curbing on Philbrook Road, Sawyer Street and Fort Road.
“It seems to be holding up well,” said Gailey. “It’s not as cheap as black asphalt curbing, but it’s surely not as expensive as granite. It also shows up well at night. It’s kind of a pale white. Your headlights hit it and it really delineates where the road and the sidewalks are.”
Gailey said the sidewalk construction would begin in late June.
“I’ve got a little bit of money I can start the project with but ultimately I’ll have to spill over to the new fiscal year, in July,” he said.
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