Question 3, Transportation Bond would improve 200 miles of state roads fix other public facilities

Question 3

Do you favor a $61,000,000 bond issue for improvements to highways and bridges, airports, public transit and ferry facilities; development of rail, trail and marine infrastructure; and improvements to intermodel facilities statewide that makes the state eligible for up to $120,800,000 in matching federal funds?

With serpentine twists and steep inclines but beautiful views, Route 1A in Dedham can be a motorist’s nightmare and dream rolled into one driving experience.

Beyond the Dedham Elementary School, the road is a multilane throughway offering breathtaking views of Phillips Lake behind the Lucerne Inn. A few hundred feet later, it plunges into a winding, narrow passageway at the intersection of Green Lake Road, where there is barely enough room for approaching vehicles to pass.

Throw into the mix a car stopped waiting to turn onto the Green Lake Road and the highway presents itself as the scene of an accident waiting to happen.

A project manager for the urban arterial highway program at the Maine Department of Transportation, Todd Pelletier has seen some of the best and the worst of the state’s 8,300-mile highway system. The 3.38-mile section of Route 1A that connects Dedham to Ellsworth ranks among the worst in the bunch.

“Motor vehicle accidents at that intersection and along that whole stretch have been fairly high because of the heavy traffic,” Pelletier said. “It only has gravel shoulders and people get off on the shoulders after they come in from the newer section at a higher rate of speed.”

Maine voters are being asked by the DOT to improve conditions on Route 1A and 200 miles of other state roads in a $61 million transportation bond question that will appear as Question 3 on Tuesday’s statewide ballot. If approved, transportation officials say, the broad-based initiative will receive $121 million in matching federal funds and nearly $16 million in local funding, creating a transportation improvement program valued at nearly $200 million.

“Nearly the entire highway reconstruction program for the next two years hinges on approval of this bond issue,”

said John Melrose, DOT commissioner. “It’s critical to our ability to keep up with deterioration on our existing system and to build improved facilities to promote jobs, economic growth and the safety of Maine people and visitors.”

Excluding any matching funds, the bond question contains $37.4 million to upgrade 200 miles of major and minor collector highway systems including $2.9 million for enhanced access to bridges used by snowmobilers and boaters who seek access to remote areas.

Under the freight-related improvements section of the bond, $5.8 million would be used to improve state-owned rail lines, $1.8 million would be used for road expansion at the Loring Commerce Centre; $1.5 million would be channeled into the state’s small-harbor improvement program and $ 1 million would fund new construction at Mack Point Pier in Searsport.

Passenger-related improvements addressed in the bond include $4 million for intermodal facilities to connect rail, transit, marine and park-and-ride areas; $3.25 million for airport improvements across the state; $2.35 million for ferry service improvements; $1.65 million to purchase buses for urban and rural transit programs; $1.5 million to rehabilitate an arch hangar at Loring Commerce Centre and $750,000 for recreational trail construction.

While there is no organized opposition to Question 3, proponents are never quite comfortable in assuming voters will automatically embrace their belief that borrowing money in tough economic times pays off with safer roads and economic spinoffs. But it’s been a long time since Maine voters have turned down a transportation bond package – 32 years, to be precise. The initiative that failed was restructured and sent back to the ballot by the Legislature and approved a year later in 1970.

Since then, transportation bond issues have become increasingly broad-based, drawing in many interests to champion their passage. During the last week, television ads touting the merits of Question 3 have been aired, funded by a coalition of allied interests known as the Keep Maine Moving political action committee. With support from the construction industry, forest recreationalists, snowmobilers and local chambers of commerce and others, the group is working hard to get the initiative approved.

We’re very hopeful that it will pass,” said Maria Fuentes of the Maine Better Transportation Association. “We didn’t have a campaign in 1969, so we’ve tried to have one ever since. In addition to making needed safety improvements across the state, this bond will also create jobs and maintain jobs.”

In addition to the need for statewide transportation improvements, proponents of Question 3 are also emphasizing that plummeting interest rates are proof that there has never been a better time for the state to borrow money.

“We’re looking at a bond of this magnitude because we’re not raising the money that’s needed to pay for these improvements,” said Jane Lincoln, DOT deputy commissioner. “And in terms of looking at a good time to bond, interest rates are continuing to drop.”

Lincoln said the road projects that constitute more than half of the bond’s total borrowing figure were allocated on an equitable basis statewide with special emphasis on safety and the economy of the region served by the particular highway. She said that in addition to the economic benefits gained by job creation and the impact of those jobs on the local economy, the road improvements also tend to be predictors of future economic development.

“When you enhance travel, you improve productivity and safety and provide the opportunity for business to locate in parts of the state they might otherwise have not considered,” she said. “When you improve a bridge or interchange, you often see development follow, which then has an impact on job creation and local property taxes.”

Just being able to get to their jobs during the summer tourist season will be a major improvement for those who live on the Green Lake Road in Dedham. If passed by the voters, the bond will reconstruct the busy intersection beginning in 2003 and finishing in late 2004. The road will have wider travel lanes and new 8-foot graveled shoulders to handle the traffic demands that have developed since it was last overhauled in the 1940s. With federal matching funds, the Green Lake Road project will be one of the more costly highway improvements under the bond proposal at $5.6 million.

Still, as Todd Pelletier of the DOT, emphasized, it’s hard to put a price on safety.

“Moving through that intersection can be terrible,” he said. “The battle that people living on Green Lake have trying to get onto 1A in the summer against the traffic is horrendous.”