Final north-south highway plan year away

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CARIBOU – It will be at least a year before a final route for a north-south highway in Aroostook County is unveiled.

Department of Transportation officials met Tuesday in Caribou with consultants and members of a regional advisory committee to pare down options to a tentative final four.

“It is our objective to keep narrowing down the choices,” Ray Faucher, DOT project manager, said. “But an announcement [of a final selection] is almost a year away.”

The Public Advisory Committee for the Aroostook County Transportation Study looked Tuesday at transportation, economic, environmental and logistical issues specific to the proposed routes in the three regions.

“We want to look at what makes sense to you in the north, central and south,” Susan Liller, a consultant to the DOT, said. “In no way are we expecting consensus today.”

From those discussions, the study team narrowed the field down to four routes connecting central and northern Aroostook County using a combination of upgrades of existing routes to four lanes and new construction.

Those recommendations are:

. A combination of upgrades to US Route 1 and new construction connecting Blaine and Caribou running east of Presque Isle.

. Upgrades to Route 161 from Caribou to Fort Kent.

. Upgrades to US Route 1 from Caribou to Van Buren.

. A new road connecting Route 161 in Daigle to Frenchville with upgrades to US Route 1 to Madawaska.

More information, the study team agreed, is needed before any route can be recommended in southern Aroostook County.

“We are recommending more study be done on those routes,” Ruth Bonsignore of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., the Massachusetts-based transportation consulting firm working with the advisory group, said.

“We are attempting to identify those concerns that the study team will use to evaluate the information,” Faucher said. “We also need to look at this from a regional perspective and see how the [routes] fit together.”

At the same time, Faucher said, the study team must be able to defend its final choice.

“We have to be able to show we looked at all possible alternatives and took everything into account,” he said.

The entire process is neither simple nor inexpensive, Faucher said.

To date, close to $2.5 million has been spent on this particular study, which began just over two years ago. Estimated cost of building a four-lane highway connecting the existing Interstate 95 to the St. John Valley is between $200 million to $500 million.

“In order for anything to happen, there needs to be funding,” Faucher said. “We need to show a need for the next phase.”

Before any construction can begin, environmental impact statements must be approved on the federal level paving the way for land and easement purchases.

Any final route is as important to getting around Aroostook County as moving in and out of the area, said PAC member and Caribou businessman Sam Collins.

“We are an economy by ourselves,” Collins said. “We need to be able to connect to each other.”

Consensus, PAC members agreed, is the key to completing the project.

“If we don’t come together as a county, we are not going to go anywhere,” Paul Bouchard, PAC member from Fort Kent, said.

The study team may have a hard sell in gaining that consensus.

At least one area politician expressed displeasure at the proposed route linking his district to its southern neighbors.

Rep. Ross Paradis from Frenchville favors a brand new road coming north to the Madawaska-St. David area from Caribou, rather than the study team’s proposed upgrades to the three communities. It is a desire, he said, shared by his constituents.

“I’m disappointed in what I heard today,” Paradis said. “What they are recommending is not reflected in the feedback I’m getting in the valley.”

The study team plans to present further analysis of the proposed routes at a meeting in Caribou on Aug. 28.