Exit 3 work may begin in spring (Printed Dec. 22)
Posted by Sentry Editor at 1/4/2007 1:10 PM 
Categories: State News, So Po News, Ward Peck, Transportation
Categories: State News, So Po News, Ward Peck, Transportation
By Ward Peck
Editor
If all goes according to schedule, construction of a new on-ramp overpass from Broadway to I-295 north will begin this spring with some of the construction occurring in the overnight hours– whether the city of Portland likes it or not.
At a sparsely attended project overview held at the three-year-old West End Fire Station of Western Avenue, Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) Project Manager Shawn Smith and South Portland’s Director of Planning, Tex Haeuser, explained that, as a state agency, MDOT has the ability to not abide local ordinances such as the city’s prohibition of night work in residential areas. The revelation came amid an effort to amend the ordinance to give the City Council the ability to suspend the prohibition. That effort, initiated with an eye toward granting an exemption to the Exit 3 project now seems moot.
“The city does not have a choice,” said City Councilor Jim Hughes, who was present at the meeting.
While MDOT does not need an exemption, Smith said the agency and its contractors will be as responsive to public concerns as possible and will establish a notification system to alert residents of expected night work.
“We want to work with the city,” Smith said.
MDOT plans to advertise a request for bids some time in January with the awarding of the bid sometime in March and construction commencing soon after.
“As long as [the bids] come in within reason.”
Roughly $4 million in federal, state, city and private money has been dedicated to the project to widen Broadway and Westbrook Street, which will include a dedicated eastbound lane on Westbrook Ave for traffic headed for I-295 north. Currently, such traffic queues in the left-hand land of Westbrook Street and must cross westbound traffic. Once completed that traffic will shift to the right, segregated from the other lanes by a low median.
The segregated lane will continue along southbound Broadway and then onto a new highway access road over Westbrook Street. Approaches to the Broadway/Westbrook intersection will be widened in all four directions.
Smith said the project is expected to be largely completed by “this time next year” with final paving and landscaping done by June of 2008.
Smith pointed out several recent MDOT projects that have come in well ahead of schedule, including the Five-Points intersection in Biddeford that was finished six months early.
Smith said he expected night work would not be necessary throughout the entire project, but only during a four to five week period while the bridge was being installed as well as other times work needed to be done in the middle of the roadway. He predicted the bridge construction would likely be tackled early in the process but said it would be largely up to the contractor.
Editor
If all goes according to schedule, construction of a new on-ramp overpass from Broadway to I-295 north will begin this spring with some of the construction occurring in the overnight hours– whether the city of Portland likes it or not.
At a sparsely attended project overview held at the three-year-old West End Fire Station of Western Avenue, Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) Project Manager Shawn Smith and South Portland’s Director of Planning, Tex Haeuser, explained that, as a state agency, MDOT has the ability to not abide local ordinances such as the city’s prohibition of night work in residential areas. The revelation came amid an effort to amend the ordinance to give the City Council the ability to suspend the prohibition. That effort, initiated with an eye toward granting an exemption to the Exit 3 project now seems moot.
“The city does not have a choice,” said City Councilor Jim Hughes, who was present at the meeting.
While MDOT does not need an exemption, Smith said the agency and its contractors will be as responsive to public concerns as possible and will establish a notification system to alert residents of expected night work.
“We want to work with the city,” Smith said.
MDOT plans to advertise a request for bids some time in January with the awarding of the bid sometime in March and construction commencing soon after.
“As long as [the bids] come in within reason.”
Roughly $4 million in federal, state, city and private money has been dedicated to the project to widen Broadway and Westbrook Street, which will include a dedicated eastbound lane on Westbrook Ave for traffic headed for I-295 north. Currently, such traffic queues in the left-hand land of Westbrook Street and must cross westbound traffic. Once completed that traffic will shift to the right, segregated from the other lanes by a low median.
The segregated lane will continue along southbound Broadway and then onto a new highway access road over Westbrook Street. Approaches to the Broadway/Westbrook intersection will be widened in all four directions.
Smith said the project is expected to be largely completed by “this time next year” with final paving and landscaping done by June of 2008.
Smith pointed out several recent MDOT projects that have come in well ahead of schedule, including the Five-Points intersection in Biddeford that was finished six months early.
Smith said he expected night work would not be necessary throughout the entire project, but only during a four to five week period while the bridge was being installed as well as other times work needed to be done in the middle of the roadway. He predicted the bridge construction would likely be tackled early in the process but said it would be largely up to the contractor.
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