To allow night work or not? On Nov. 6, the South Portland City Council will consider a change to the ordinance prohibiting any night time construction within the city’s limits. The change would grant the council authority to waive this prohibition. Currently, there are no mechanisms for granting exceptions to the rule. If the ordinance change is approved on Nov. 6 and again following a public hearing and second vote on Nov. 20, the council could then consider a request by the Maine Department of Transportation to apply a waiver to it’s oft-delayed completion of the Exit 3 improvements.

At both the Nov. 6 and Nov. 20 meetings, the council will likely hear from the residents of Evergreen Road, Hobart, Linton Hall and other streets that are neighbors to Interstate 295 between exits 3 and 4 who have witnessed the highway and the sound it creates grow and grow.

While the issue of whether or not night work will proceed at this location will not be decided at these meetings (a very public process is planned to debate the specific proposal); enacting the ordinance change will clear the way for such a debate.

Night work at Exit 3, all sides agree, amounts to deciding between two bad options. Does the city allow its already frazzled residents to endure a new spectrum of aural offenses at impossibly inconvenient times? Or does it take into account the necessity to get an important project– not just to South Portland but the entire metropolitan area– done as quickly and efficiently as possible?

We hope the council takes into account more views than those constituents who vote. There are also those who work, shop, eat and visit South Portland. Night work will be awful for the residents of the area. Not doing it could impact the productivity of thousands more for months. The council needs to pass this waiver. The council and all of the region's legislators also need to push for the installation of sound barriers for residents who bear the burden of this important corridor.

–Ward Peck