York residents oppose plan for new toll plaza

YORK – Residents opposed to a plan by the Maine Turnpike Authority to relocate and improve the 39-year-old York Toll Plaza took their message to the streets.

About 75 protesters rallied along U.S. 1 on Sunday to urge turnpike officials to reconsider the plan to replace the existing toll plaza with a $35 million facility designed to be more motorist-friendly and accommodate new technology.

Four potential locations were proposed for the new plaza, each of which would require the loss of at least one home.

Members of Think Again, the grass-roots opposition group, questioned the value of destroying a neighborhood to build a new toll plaza and suggested that the existing one be renovated.

“Fix what’s there – they built it. Now, fix it,” said Vicki Muscarello, 46, of York.

Muscarello and her parents, Carol and Lou Potvin, who have lived in town for 45 years, held placards urging turnpike officials to “take tolls, not homes and land.”

The turnpike authority says the current toll plaza was built on wetlands and is sinking at a rate of an inch a year. The authority also says the plaza’s location near an interchange and on a curve at the bottom of a hill makes it hard for motorists to see every lane as they approach the plaza.

Officials note that the York Toll Plaza was meant to last only 25 years and cannot accommodate new technology that allows E-Z Pass customers to pay tolls while driving at highway speed.

Think Again members persuaded the town to schedule a nonbinding referendum on the toll plaza issue on May 17.

The turnpike authority plans to choose one of its four proposed sites next month and begin work on the new facility next year.