Advisory group plans session to consider new County highway

CARIBOU – A four-lane highway bisecting Aroostook County would save the most in travel time, but it also would have the most impact on natural resources, according to an analysis of possible routes.

Study officials will meet at 1 p.m. Tuesday for a four-hour session to consider the alternative routes with a panel comprising public officials from throughout Aroostook County. The panel is known as a public advisory committee or PAC. The meeting will be held at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center in Caribou.

By this fall, one route will be chosen by state transportation officials and proposed as the preferred alternative for a highway that offers better access in and out of the region.

“The [Tuesday] meeting will be important because we will be presenting to the PAC a comprehensive comparison of the transportation, economic and environmental virtues of each of the corridor alternatives,” said Jon Feinstein, project manager with Vanesse, Hangen and Brustlin, a Massachusetts firm doing the study.

The PAC members will be asked for their say on matters regarding the various alternatives and how the proposed roads would affect commerce as well as the environment, according to Arthur Faucher, the project’s manager for the state Department of Transportation.

The screening analysis takes each corridor and rates it against the project’s statement of purpose and need. Study officials have determined the region is losing population and the area has been lagging behind in economic growth.

If a road were built, it could maintain or even expand the Aroostook County’s population, employment, job diversification and income, according to planners.

Corridors also are rated as to how well to provide access to various facilities, how much time they save in travel and if they improve connections to markets.

The corridor that consistently received high marks in the analysis takes a path that starts off Route 95 at Smryna Mills and proceeds through the woods. The proposed road continues in a northeast fashion, bypassing Presque Isle to the east.

The road then goes by Caribou, passing to the west of the city, continuing through undeveloped territory between Routes 1 and 161, ending at Route 1 to the east of Madawaska.

The cost of building the 100-mile stretch was estimated at $439 million. Projections also indicate it would allow The County’s population to increase by more than 1,000 people, create about 560 jobs and increase personal income by $24.5 million.

At the same time, the corridor could result in the loss of $4.9 million in sales from traffic diverted from business on Route 1 between Houlton and Caribou.

The so-called Corridor H also has the highest environmental impact of all the proposed routes, according to the analysis. On a scale of 0 through 4, the corridor ranks 3.25, the study determined.

In the review, VHB and DOT officials have determined that five potential routes, including H, meet the general purpose and need statement, while eight of them, as standalone alternatives, fail to meet those standards.

Meeting the criteria were construction up the middle of the region, an upgrade of Routes 1 and 1A and a potential road parallel to Route 1.

Deleted from further consideration as standalone options are proposed upgrades on Routes 11, 1, 161 and 163. Construction between Westfield and Caribou and Ashland and Caribou, and a stretch of new road from the upper 161 to Frenchville, also were eliminated in the analysis.

In another section of the analysis, combinations of the entire list of corridors are proposed to fit the individual needs of northern, central and southern regions of Aroostook County.

Each of the combinations also is rated as to how well they fit the requirements of the purpose and need statement.

The PAC meetings are open to the public, but the discussion of the corridors is limited to PAC members. Traditionally, the meeting reserves some time at the end of the session for comment from spectators.