Planning underway for D-F downtown traffic improvements

DOVER-FOXCROFT — The concerns for downtown Dover-Foxcroft vary, those raised included tractor trailer trucks turning on the narrow streets, where pedestrians can safely cross and deteriorating asphalt and cement on the road and sidewalks, and while there may be no immediate fixes, town and state officials hope to develop some short-term and long-term solutions. An early step in the process was taken with a Dover-Foxcroft Urban Area Transportation Study public meeting on Sept. 19 at the Morton Avenue Municipal Building.

“This is the first step of studying traffic patterns in our downtown,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said.

He said the town is looking to find some possible solutions for the stretch of road where East Main, Pleasant, South, West Main, North and Lincoln streets converge having agreed to use up to $25,000 for the municipality’s 50/50 share with the Maine Department of Transportation on a cooperative agreement for a traffic study. The downtown includes the major routes to Bangor, Dexter, Milo and Greenville. Gorrill Palmer Consulting Engineers Inc. of South Portland is on board as a consultant.

“This is a process to be able to identify issues with traffic movement, pedestrian movement, traffic lights, parking and looking at ways they can be addressed and ways they can be addressed without creating other problems,” Clukey said. “It’s not just how things are today but how we see things in the very near future.”

He said with state roads passing through downtown, the MDOT needs to be a partner and the final traffic study will be completed by the end of April.

Randy Dunton of Gorrill Palmer said a summary of the existing conditions includes average daily traffic counts and when peak hours are based on a 12-hour review conducted July 17.. He said Summer Street sees an average of 5,460 daily vehicles, in both directions, while East Main Street is close with a count of 5,191 and West Main Street is busier at 8,380 cars and trucks per day.

“This helps identify where the traffic volume is, where the use is coming from,” Dunton said. He said the Dover-Foxcroft traffic count was unusual with the volume at its highest point in the mid-morning and lasting for several hours, as opposed to early in the morning in other communities when many commuters head to work.

“You have a large amount up to 7-8 percent,” Dunton said about heavy truck traffic in the daily counts. He said the percentage of these vehicles is often closer to 2 percent of traffic going through in other Maine towns.

Showing a map of Dover-Foxcroft walking routes, Dunton said these all converge downtown. “It’s pretty rough right now if you are trying to cross in certain directions,” he said. “You always have to remember it’s a balance. Pedestrians, vehicles, they all want the same space.”

Dunton said the final report date is April 30 but “at 4:30 p.m. that day don’t expect backhoes.” He added, “We have to figure out where we are, how do we go forward and what is the planning process.”

Nate Howard of the MDOT Bureau of Planning said the planning partnership initiative between the department and municipality has a “goal of coming to some consensus of short-term, mid-term and long-term improvements.”

He then went through a traffic study timeline. The current conditions assessment will be done by Nov. 12, a future scenarios assessment and study team review both have January dates, preliminary recommendations will be developed by March 20 and the second study team review will be a week later.
On April 17 a second public meeting for the Dover-Foxcroft Urban Area Transportation Study will be held, with the final report date of April 30. “Probably the next line will be implementation,” Howard said.

He said the MDOT has an annual 3-year work plan. Howard also asked those present to remember that at times projects are not carried out if all bids come in well over budget — local contractors and the state would likely both be working in Dover-Foxcroft.

Clukey said feedback is being sought on specific concerns. “Any issues that you think will help us get any issues addressed in the process,” he said.

Rep. Norm Higgins, I-Dover-Foxcroft said he had three points to make.

First Higgins said over the summer MDOT Commissioner Bruce Van Note came up to tour the area. “We took him down to the corner on on South Street and dared him to stand on the sidewalk,” Higgins said about where tractor trailers need to go up over the curb to turn off and on to East Main Street. “He clearly understood the safety concerns there.”

He said up the street by Monument Square, the road curves so there is a difficult line of sight by the crosswalk. “So there’s an issue there,” Higgins said, saying that traffic to the Mill complex goes in and out through the Dover-Foxcroft Congregational Church parking lot and very near to the building.

Higgins said he is not only a church trustee but a member of the Foxcroft Academy board of trustees. He said the opening of the Piscataquis County Ice Arena is “going to create substantially more traffic, maybe not this winter but next winter.”

The secondary school will be breaking ground in the spring for an indoor sports complex, and Higgins said this will also add to the number of vehicles coming through town and heading up West Main Street and then back again.

“The traffic count five years from now will look substantially more different,” the representative said. “I think this study is coming in at the right time but I think it’s critical to look at all three of those.”