By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

Maine State Representative and Cape Elizabeth Town Councilor Cynthia Dill feels as if she places her children’s lives in danger each time she asks them to walk to school in the morning. She said she considers the intersection of Route 77, Scott Dyer Road and Shore Road “dangerous for pedestrians,” but not all of her neighbors share her opinion.

“I’ve seen no more than three cars backed up there in any more than three minutes,” Shore Road resident Linda Johnson said. “I feel like it took a long time to get the town council to admit there wasn’t a safety issue there. People make it dangerous, not the roads.”

The intersection has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade; Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) Project Manager Shawn Smith said it was identified as being an important part of improving Cape Elizabeth’s town center in 1993 and nearly $450,000 was earmarked by the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee (PACTS) to redesign the intersection in 2003. 

According to a traffic study updated earlier this year, nearly 15,000 vehicles pass through the intersection daily with an average wait time of less than a minute to make a left hand turn onto either Shore Road or Scott Dyer road. When it comes to making a left hand turn onto Route 77, however, commuters wait an average of more than six minutes during peak traffic hours, MDOT Designer Jonathan French said.  

Last week, more than a year after an October public hearing and  design workshop on the future of the intersection, MDOT presented a final, “scaled down,” version of a proposed $1.1 million facelift – including a stoplight, left turning lanes, widened sidewalks and painted crosswalks. Residents and town officials at the meeting had mixed feelings about the project. 

Resident Edward Johnson said it wasn’t fair for MDOT to use eminent domain to acquire land from several properties surrounding the intersection to make room for the new turning lanes and a sidewalk. 

“It doesn’t seem like this whole project is worth taking people’s land,” he said.

MDOT right-of-way team member Michael Danforth said the state could only seize land in the interest of a “significant public need” and would offer landowners a reimbursement payment for their lost property. If refused, court proceedings could follow.

“We consider each land owner an expert on their property so they don’t have to bring an attorney but I always point out that we bring ours,” he said. “Ninety to 95 percent of these cases are solved by negotiation.”

Linda Johnson said she not only believed the intersection was not dangerous, but the new design would “ruin the rural character of the town.”

“It’s going to feel like a freeway, all for the convenience of saving a few minutes in the morning,” she said. 

Resident Frances Haywood said she was concerned about the potential cost of the project and feared councilors in support of it were “whistling past the graveyard.” 

Town Manager Michael McGovern said the town could be responsible for up to 15 percent of the PACTS $450,000 contribution – $67,500 – and 100 percent of the remaining cost – $558,000 – resulting in an estimated $625,500 cost to the town. Any cost associated with improvements above and beyond MDOT’s proposal would also fall on the town’s shoulders, he said.

“It will end up being about three-quarters of a million,” McGovern said. “[MDOT] only installs bituminous sidewalks and we want concrete.”

A remaining $900,000 from in a bond approved by voters last year for drainage and road improvements in the town center could be rolled into the project, he said.

“For one of the wealthiest towns in Maine to accept state funding because we can’t wait [at the intersection] is appalling and makes me sick,” Haywood said, encouraging councilors to “consider a moratorium on all new spending just like all families are having to do.”

Smith said if the town rejects the proposal altogether it would still have to pay nearly $120,000 already spent for design and engineering. Construction of the new design will be less expensive than constructing a $1.5 million “roundabout” at the intersection, a popular suggestion at the design workshop last year but dismissed due to cost and space constraints, he said. 

 “[A stoplight] doesn’t solve any problems for me,” former traffic safety committee member Carol Fritz said. “I don’t want to spend money for this but I would for a roundabout.”

McGovern said the town council plans schedule a Nov. 10 public hearing on the MDOT proposal at their Oct. 15 meeting. 

“It strikes me [MDOT’s proposal] is an improvement, especially during the morning hours,” Council Chairman Mary Ann Lynch said. “It’s a free-for-all now.”