SOUTH PORTLAND – The Maine Turnpike is delaying plans to widen a nine-mile stretch of the toll highway from Scarborough to Falmouth for at least two years, an official for the toll highway said.

The plan to add two lanes to the highway is being put off because traffic numbers are down and the need for the extra lanes is diminished, said Conrad Welzel, the turnpike’s head of government relations.

Welzel said monthly traffic counts on the turnpike have been flat or down almost all year compared with 2007.

The turnpike authority had planned to begin a study on widening the highway this year in hopes of beginning work in 2012. The study has been pushed back at least two years.

The stretch of the turnpike below Scarborough already has been widened.