DOT approves increased ATV access

    GREENVILLE, Maine — The Maine Department of Transportation has approved the town of Greenville’s request to allow ATVs to travel from the downtown business district to Indian Hill Trading Post on Route 15.
    The announcement was made by Town Manager John Simko at the April 15 Board of Selectmen’s meeting.
    Currently, the four-wheelers are allowed on Pritham Avenue from Greenville Junction to the municipal parking lot behind Flatlander’s Restaurant. But they were not permitted on Route 15, thus cutting them off from the town’s major shopping plaza.

The town’s selectmen, working with the Moosehead ATV Club, submitted a request to allow the additional access and held two public hearings on the proposal last year.
    The DOT’s conditions for approval require that ATVs use the shoulder of Route 15 to travel from Eveleth Hill south to the entrance to the Indian Hill Hotel, across from the shopping plaza.
    The access route is approved for use only from May 15 to Nov. 15 between 8:30 a.m. and dusk and the DOT will install the proper signage to delineate the route for ATV riders. The cost to the town will be $100 per sign, including installation.
    According to the minutes of the selectmen’s meeting, Moosehead ATV Club President Ken Snowdon agreed on behalf of the club to have signs “similar to, if not identical to, the signs used by the MDOT, purchased and installed by the club along the town’s entire ATV access route as necessary.”
Snowdon also agreed to have two kiosks created and placed at both ends of the ATV access route network to explain the rules to riders.
    Finally, selectmen agreed by consensus to allow Simko to work with Snowdon to prepare and to submit a municipal ATV grant application to the state this year for additional trail improvements and signage.
    In other action at Wednesday’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting, Simko reported that the rough winter has taken its toll on Greenville’s dirt roads which were described as “muddy and in poor condition.”
    The town manager said that some roads “still have snowbanks in the ditch line and all have frost in the ground. The public works department has been chasing water everywhere, including frozen culverts on Lakeview Street, East Road, South Wiggins Street and emerging sinkholes on Higgins Road East Road and Scammon Road, with more expected as more frost comes out of the ground.”
    But he added that there’s very little the town can do about conditions for the time being. “This week, all we can do is help the water drain off the roads by keeping culverts open and flowing, and cutting holes in the snowbanks to let water run off,” he told the board.
    On the good news front, $20,000 in new exercise equipment has arrived at the town’s recreation center at Leisure Life Resort, thanks to a Plum Creek Foundation Grant submitted by Recreation Director Sally Tornquist.
    The department can now start marketing memberships for the fitness center and forms will be available at the town office.