BANGOR – By the end of the week, shoppers will be out en masse to kick off the holiday season, including at the new Bangor Parkade development off Stillwater Avenue.

Traffic in that area has been a well-documented headache since Kohl’s, Old Navy and other stores opened about a month ago.

This coming weekend, traditionally one of the busiest shopping times of the year, isn’t expected to make matters better, and the city wants to do what it can to curb traffic standstills.

The city has joined with Parkade developers to create a new lane on its side of Stillwater Avenue designed to ease congestion.

“We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks monitoring the traffic,” City Engineer Jim Ring said Monday afternoon. “We’ve anticipated that a point would come where it would be advantageous to add another lane.”

Construction, which includes removing and relocating the center divider, began Sunday evening and is expected to continue through Wednesday and be completed before Thanksgiving.

The new lane will be created in the southbound lane of Stillwater Avenue near the intersection with the Interstate 95 offramp. The expansion will allow one lane for vehicles turning right into the new mall, another separate lane for vehicles going straight through Stillwater and will keep two lanes for traffic turning left onto the Interstate.

Right now there are three lanes: two going onto the Interstate and one combined lane going straight and into Parkade.

Ring said research conducted by his staff indicated that the through lane of Stillwater Avenue was the biggest cause of traffic backup.

“No question that this will improve matters, but I don’t think it’s realistic to suggest that there will be no congestion around there,” Ring said, adding: “The traffic volumes are heavy everywhere. It almost seems like people may be doing some shopping early, and other merchants have corroborated that.”

About a month ago, when many of the stores at the new mall opened, the congestion was blamed on poorly timed traffic signals. The city worked to synchronize those lights, but that apparently didn’t do the trick as traffic has remained a problem.

At peak times during the week and on weekends, vehicles have been seen backed up all the way down to Hogan Road. Adding to the problem were vehicles trying to turn onto Stillwater from the Bangor Mall and blocking northbound traffic.

The one bit of good news to the city is that the mall’s owner, Bangor Parkade Inc. – a subsidiary of First Hartford Realty Corp. of Manchester, Conn. – is picking up the cost for the project.

“We’ve done a lot of off-site traffic mitigation out there already; what we’re trying to do now is tweak what we had planned on doing,” John Toic, vice president for Bangor Parkade, said Monday by phone. He said the cost, which he didn’t know at the time, is included in Parkade’s operational costs.

Toic said even though it’s a hassle, the increased traffic has been great for business.

“The tenants are all really thrilled; they have had a great opening season, expecting a good holiday season,” he said.

Representatives at Kohl’s and Old Navy referred comments Monday to their respective corporate offices.

Ring said the new lane should help, but he said there also may be future changes in the mall area designed to accommodate a larger number of motorists.

“What I envision is the widening of Stillwater all the way to Hogan Road,” Ring said. “That needs to become a five-lane stretch.

“We’ve known that for a while, but you don’t do these things instantly.”