DOT considering new intersection onto MDI

TRENTON – Travelers headed to and from Mount Desert Island might encounter another traffic signal along the way within a few years, according to state officials.

Planners with the Maine Department of Transportation are looking at creating a new four-way intersection by extending the access road to the Hancock County airport farther south on Route 3. The end of Route 230 at Route 3 would be reconfigured to be directly opposite the new airport access road.

If traffic engineers determine a traffic signal would be needed at the new intersection, it would be the first such signal in the town of Trenton.

“The engineers will take a look at that,” Ron Roy, director of DOT’s office of passenger transportation, said Friday about the possibility of putting a traffic signal in Trenton. “I think it’s pretty preliminary right now.”

On the south side of the Trenton causeway onto MDI, there also could be a new traffic signal to replace the existing three-color light at the head of the island.

Steve Landry, the DOT’s assistant state traffic engineer, said Friday that state officials hope to reroute the northbound lane of Route 102 so it would connect with Route 3 on the east side of the Parkadia Exxon gas station. By moving the traffic signal farther from the south end of the causeway, he said, southbound traffic headed for 102 should be able to flow unimpeded onto the island.

“By doing that, we’d move the traffic signal about 500 or 600 feet from where it is today,” Landry said. “We’re still designing it. We have to go to a public meeting.”

He said state officials expect to schedule such a meeting for sometime in July. The state has set aside $1.2 million for the project, which would not begin until the summer of 2008 and possibly later, he said.

Engineering plans for both projects are in the early stages and no final designs have been selected or will be selected without public input, DOT officials said Friday.

According to Landry, there could be some benefit at the new intersection on MDI for other vehicles besides those heading south on Route 102. With fewer stopped cars backing up toward the causeway, vehicles heading off island north on Route 102 might get a longer green light than they get now, which could result in fewer vehicles backing up south on 102 after the light turns red.

Roy said the DOT recently agreed with the Federal Aviation Administration on a preliminary plan to move the entrance road to the Hancock County/Bar Harbor Airport. The FAA wants to move the road farther from the end of one of the airport’s runways.

By moving the entrance road farther south, planners could also reconfigure the end of Route 230 so that it would connect with Route 3 at a regular 90-degree intersection instead of at the existing slanted angle, he said.

Roy said he thinks the new four-way intersection could be located just north of the existing Trenton Grange Hall. The intersection likely would include left-hand turning lanes for traffic turning off Route 3, he said. Planners also are looking into the possibility of moving the entrance to the Narrows Too Campground from Route 3 to the new airport access road.

“I think they’ll be able to go around it,” he said of the Grange building.

Because state and federal officials agreed only recently to cooperate on moving the airport entrance road, little preliminary planning work has been done on this project, Roy said. He said a public meeting on the proposal has yet to be scheduled.