ELLSWORTH – An issue debated off and on for decades in Hancock County has sprung back to life with the results of a survey conducted by the city’s comprehensive plan review committee.

City and state officials have heard many and often opposing arguments about how to deal with the vehicular traffic that funnels through Ellsworth, but respondents to the survey are overwhelmingly in favor of one of the options.

Seventy-two percent of the more than 350 respondents favor the construction of a highway bypass around the city’s commercial district. Of 1,500 surveys randomly sent out, 356 – or 23.7 percent – were filled out and returned to the committee.

Tom Martin, director of the Hancock County Planning Commission, said Tuesday this represents an increase from the last time a poll was taken on the bypass issue. He said 66.7 percent of people surveyed for the city’s 1992 comprehensive plan were in favor of the Maine Department of Transportation building a bypass around Ellsworth’s commercial center.

“That’s slightly more than a 3 percent increase,” Martin said. The planning commission helped process the data and prepare the committee’s report on the returned surveys.

Melissa Rockwood, co-chair of the comprehensive plan review committee, said the response in favor of a bypass might have been less if the proposal were more specific.

“The question is kind of a tricky one,” Rockwood said. “It doesn’t say where it would be, for example.”

She said she has heard various arguments over the years but was surprised that 72 percent of those surveyed support the idea.

Steve Lambert, the other co-chair of the committee, said DOT officials have told him that if a bypass for Ellsworth ever were approved, it likely would take 10 years to implement.

“There have to be additional efforts to manage traffic in the city,” Lambert said. Traffic on Ellsworth’s back streets, where drivers go to avoid the congestion on High Street, has increased considerably in recent years, he said.

Other transportation alternatives that got support from 50 percent or more of the respondents were building more sidewalks and bikeways, increasing transit services such as buses or van pools, and extending train service from Bangor to Ellsworth.

Transportation was the major issue respondents said they disliked about the city. Roughly 275 listed transportation as one of the top two dislikes about Ellsworth, while leadership, listed by approximately 75 respondents, came in a distant second. Taxes, commerce, and services followed, each with about 50 responses.

Traffic congestion, the lack of transportation alternatives and the poor quality of some roads were listed in the survey report as transportation issues needing attention.

Accessibility and convenience of services topped what people liked about Ellsworth. More than 150 respondents listed access as one of their top two likes about Ellsworth, with the city’s small size coming in second with about 120 responses.

Martin said the responses supporting Ellsworth’s accessibility but criticizing its traffic do not necessarily represent divided opinions among the survey respondents.

“You can have convenient access and still take steps to manage traffic congestion,” Martin said.

Martin said the survey’s respondents might not represent a true cross-section of Ellsworth residents. Surveys in general are more likely to elicit responses from older people with higher incomes, he said. He pointed out that of the 356 people who responded to the survey, 83 percent said they own their own homes.

“There’s a much higher percentage of homeowners,” Martin said, adding that 14 percent said they rent their home. People who rent their homes move more often and are more likely to be missed by surveys, he said.

Nearly half of the respondents, 48 percent, said the people who live in their homes were between ages 45 and 64. People between ages 25 and 44 made up 35 percent of the respondents, while 29 percent were 65 or older.

No questions were asked on the survey about income because this tends to lower people’s inclination to respond, even if the information is going to be kept confidential, according to Martin.

“We don’t have any statistics on what the income levels are,” Martin said.

The committee has been meeting twice a month for more than a year to draft a new comprehensive plan for the city, which last adopted such a plan in 1992. Of the 356 people who responded to the survey, 96 percent said they were year-round residents of Ellsworth, and 3 percent said they were seasonal residents. The remainder said they were nonresident landowners, nonresident businesspeople or unspecified “other.”

Other issues addressed in the survey included housing, development, length of residency in the city and education. Slower growth in the city was favored by 160 respondents, while 147 favored keeping the growth rate as it is now, according to the survey report. Faster growth was supported by 38 people.

When asked what two issues were most important to Ellsworth’s future, respondents most often cited quality of education, which was listed by 45 percent of those surveyed. Affordable property taxes was cited by 38 percent of the respondents, while 35 percent listed employment opportunities as one of their top two picks.

Rockwood said the committee is finished with the information-gathering phase of its project and now is to start writing and designing the report. She added she hopes the committee can have the entire task completed by Memorial Day 2002.

“I’m not sure how realistic that is, but I’d love it,” Rockwood said.