AUGUSTA – The choices legislators face for naming the new bridge being built over the Penobscot River between Prospect and Verona Island seems to have narrowed, so to speak, to between Downeast Gateway and Penobscot Narrows.

Earlier this year, state Sens. Carol Weston, R-Montville, and Richard Rosen, R-Bucksport, and state Rep. Ken Lindell, R-Frankfort, announced that the bridge would be called the Downeast Gateway Bridge.

The bridge, which is replacing the Waldo-Hancock Bridge, is at least 40 percent completed.

Within a few weeks of the announcement, the Downeast Gateway name began being panned in the towns on the Waldo County side of the river.

At a meeting in Stockton Springs last month, some municipal officials and residents arrived at a consensus for naming the $84 million structure the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.

The Legislature must vote to officially name bridges built with state money.

On Tuesday, the Legislature’s Transportation Committee heard about 90 minutes of comment on the name.

Speaking in favor of the Downeast Gateway Bridge name, called for in LD 1986, co-sponsored by Weston and Rosen, were the two senators, Lindell, and Rep. Walter Ash, D-Belfast.

Still, Lindell and Ash expressed some ambivalence about the name, and both noted the apparent groundswell of opposition to the Downeast Gateway name.

Lindell, whose district includes towns on both sides of the bridge, said he originally supported the Downeast Gateway name, and dismissed early opposition. But it grew.

“It is quite vehement from some areas of the public,” he told the committee.

Lindell surveyed constituents by mail and received 231 replies – about 10 percent. Of those, 126 said they didn’t like the Downeast Gateway name, and 86 indicated they liked it. More than three dozen indicated they liked Penobscot Narrows or some variation that included the name “Penobscot.”

Ash confirmed the local opposition.

“This has been a very hot topic in our area,” he said, with people saying “Downeast” referred to another part of the state, and objecting to the “gateway” term, which implied the area was merely a place people are “going through.”

Supporting the Downeast Gateway name more wholeheartedly was Alvion Kimball, owner of an Orland inn and a board member of the Blue Hill Peninsular Chamber of Commerce and the Bucksport Bay Area Chamber.

Both boards voted to support the Downeast Gateway name, he said.

“We think [Downeast] is analogous to looking for the end of the rainbow in Ireland,” Kimball said, and believes the name would encourage tourism in the area.

State Historian Earle Shettleworth Jr. told the committee he strongly favored the Downeast Gateway name, and noted the term Down East has been used to refer to coastal Maine or Maine since 1833.

But 10 people spoke against the Downeast name, including Searsport Selectman Dick Desmarais and Stockton Springs Selectman Sara Bradford. Both town boards and Prospect selectmen voted to support the Penobscot Narrows name, they said.

Desmarais said he had spoken to some 200 people in Searsport about the name, and all but two opposed Downeast Gateway. Most liked the Penobscot Narrows name, he said.

Joanne McNally, former president of the Belfast Area Chamber of Commerce, said that group’s board also voted unanimously to endorse the Penobscot Narrows name.

Rosen said he and Weston worked over a seven-month period to gather name suggestions. The state Department of Transportation’s Web site allowed suggestions to be made, and in all, 261 were filed, he said.

Rosen and Weston decided to choose a name relating to a description of place and geography, and settled on Downeast Gateway, they said.

The committee is scheduled to discuss the name at 1 p.m. Thursday, March 9, in Room 126 of the State House.