6-year DOT plan accelerates road, bridge repairs

AUGUSTA – Nearly half of the 8,269 miles of state-maintained roads in Maine need reconstruction or other capital improvements to meet safety standards.

The six-year transportation improvement plan released by the state Department of Transportation last week outlines how the reconstruction and improvements – estimated to cost $1.4 billion – will be accomplished.

DOT issues two-year road and bridge work plans that align with the state’s biennial budget, and 20-year plans that point to long-range policy goals. The six-year plan links the two, and focuses on changing conditions and trends over time, according to an overview of the plan.

The two-year plan calls for $613 million in transportation improvements between July 1 and the end of June 2003. Of that investment, $408 million is expected to come from the federal government, and $61 million is tied to a bond request slated to go to voters in November. The rest of the funding is expected to come from state and local sources.

The two-year plan dedicates $488 million toward improvement work on 222 miles of arterial and collector highways; pavement preservation for 401 miles of highways; and maintenance paving on 1,450 miles of highway. Also included in that spending is work on 123 bridges.

The two-year budget request also dedicates $111 million to air, ferry, mass transit, passenger rail and trail programs, and $12.3 million to freight enhancement programs.

Among the local projects are: the Route 1 corridor from Houlton to Topsfield; Route 15 in Dover-Foxcroft and Dexter; a $3.5 million Route 1 bridge replacement in Machias; intermodal passenger transportation facilities on the Bangor waterfront; preliminary engineering for a new Old Town-Milford bridge; and $1.8 million in improvements at Hancock County Airport in Trenton.

The six-year plan – covering work expected to be completed from 2002 to 2007 – accelerates work on some of the roads DOT maintains. Three major initiatives are outlined:

All the deficient rural arterials, both principal and minor, will be addressed within 10 years, with the state tackling 30 miles of improvements each year, up from 21 miles a year in the current biennial plan.

All deficient rural major collector roads will be addressed within 20 years. The plan calls for an average of 96 miles of improvements per year, up from 18 miles in 1998-99, and 50 miles in 2000-2001, but only 60 miles of work will be done in each of the first 10 years; the work will be accelerated in the next 10 years.

Deficient minor collector roads will be improved in partnership with municipalities, with towns and cities raising one-third of the cost in matching funds.

The 3,564 public highway bridges for which DOT is responsible are also covered in the six-year plan.

Many of the bridges built in the mid-1900s as part of a push to complete the interstate system are reaching the end of their useful lives, the report notes. In the past six years, increases in deficiencies have outpaced funding.

As a result, just 73 percent of the bridges are considered structurally and functionally adequate, down from 78 percent in 1992.

DOT Commissioner John Melrose noted in an overview of the plan that the department’s 2001-2002 budget proposal calls for enough funds “to halt the downward trend and begin a reversal.”

The DOT is also making progress on repairing bridges it categorizes as “extraordinary,” most of which are more than 250 feet long, the commissioner noted. Those bridges have improvement costs of $5 million or more.

“They’re the budget-busters unless they are carefully managed and programmed for improvements and maintenance to spread the cost,” Melrose said.

In 1994, the cost of bringing the larger bridges up to snuff was estimated at $443 million. The estimate is now down to $235 million, according to Melrose. By 2008, if the six-year plan is funded at anticipated levels, the cost will be down to $126 million.

Among the bridges slated for rehabilitation or improvement under the six-year plan are: the Memorial Bridge in Augusta, the Aroostook River Bridge in Caribou, the Deer Isle-Sedgwick Bridge, the International Bridge in Fort Kent, the Penobscot and Piscataquis river bridges in Howland, the Beals Island Bridge in Jonesport-Beals, the Covered Bridge in Norridgewock, the Old Town-Milford Bridge, and the Waldo-Hancock Bridge in Prospect-Verona.

The DOT plans can be found at the Department of Transportation’s Web site: www.state.me.us/mdot/