Construction to disrupt traffic on Central Street Business owners brace for impact

BANGOR – The black-and-orange traffic sign at the corner of Harlow and Central streets is a flashing harbinger of about six weeks of traffic disruption, starting Monday, while the Maine Department of Transportation is doing repair work on the bridge over Kenduskeag Stream.

Local merchants anticipate disruption of their businesses as well but are remaining optimistic about the project.

“Needless to say, we’re not thrilled about this,” Paul Zebiak, owner of Maritime International, a coin and jewelry store on Central Street, said Tuesday. “This is a rather tough street trafficwise anyway, under the best of circumstances. This will make it degrees worse.”

The project is expected to last until the beginning of October.

The one-way street – which normally is two lanes expanding into three for turning purposes – will carry only one lane of traffic across the bridge until the project is done, Brian Hills, DOT bridge maintenance assistant, said Tuesday.

The DOT received complaints of potholes on the bridge earlier this summer, Hills said. Those potholes allow rain and road salt runoff to permeate a rubber membrane that protects the concrete bridge deck.

“If there’s no membrane, the concrete will rot,” Hills said. “If we can get it resurfaced, it will increase the longevity of the bridge.”

The DOT plans to replace the bridge’s asphalt surface with concrete, which should last for 15 to 20 years. The bridge repair work should cost roughly $100,000, funded through the state’s gas tax.

The next six weeks of construction, however, may make life more difficult for some downtown merchants.

“I don’t feel real good about it,” Brad Ryder, owner of Epic Sports, said Tuesday. “Road maintenance is always important for safety reasons, but it does create a hardship. It’s one more thing to discourage people from coming downtown.”

Ryder compared the situation to work done several years ago on Franklin Street, which had a noticeable impact on downtown traffic and parking.

Zebiak said he hoped the construction would slow down traffic at what he considers to be the most dangerous intersection in the city, at Harlow and Central streets.

“I had a customer struck by a car three or four years ago while crossing the street,” he said. “Of course he was jaywalking, but the car really was going too fast to stop.”

Another merchant expressed relief at the timing of the project.

“My only reaction for the DOT is to say thank you for waiting until the tourists have gone home and until after the [National] Folk Festival,” Sonya DiMonaco, owner of Bagel Central, said Tuesday.

Otherwise, DiMonaco was philosophical about the coming construction-related traffic snarls.

“What are you going to do about it?” she asked rhetorically. “Wait until the bridge falls in?”

Before the project’s projected October end date, many downtown motorists may wish they could follow the lead of Sarah Faragher, owner of Sarah’s Books on Central Street.

“I’m a little worried about parking,” Faragher said Tuesday. “But I haven’t really had vacation yet this summer, so I might just close down for a week.”