BUCKSPORT – Town councilors are itching for a fight.

They want a sign on Interstate 95 directing motorists from Augusta down Route 3 to the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory that links Waldo and Hancock counties.

The state’s transportation commissioner, David Cole, says they can’t have one.

Councilors dug in their heels Thursday after reading a letter from the commissioner in which Cole rejected the town’s request for the sign. They directed the town’s economic development director and chairman of the economic development committee, David Milam, to work with surrounding communities and their state representatives to pressure the commissioner to change his mind.

“You just don’t build an $85 million structure and then not tell anybody about it,” Councilor Lisa Whitney said.

After a phone conversation Friday afternoon, the commissioner agreed to meet with Town Manager Roger Raymond to discuss the council’s concerns and potential marketing options.

The issue arose from the town’s desire to promote the bridge and to attract visitors to the region. In a letter, Economic Development Director Milam suggested that as part of a marketing approach for the bridge, “letting visitors know how to get to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory will best be achieved with interstate signage that is consistent with MDOT’s commitment to other high-visitor locations.”

Milam suggested that signs direct northbound traffic to use Route 3 in Augusta and southbound to use Route 15 from Bangor as the desired routes to the bridge and observatory.

While the department supports promoting the bridge, the commissioner rejected the idea of signs on the interstate. Cole said he understood the town’s desire to promote the midcoast and Down East areas, but he also noted that the department has in the past received several requests from communities and businesses to install such signage on the interstate.

“We had to deny such requests because the fact is that several alternatives exist by which one can reach those destinations,” Cole wrote. “That is, to install ‘desired’ route signing, is to imply that there is only one way to ‘get there from here.'”

He also indicated the DOT has “never” installed signs to promote a specific transportation structure or system.

“While we will install signs along the immediate Route 1 corridor to indicate the bridge and observatory, we do not support the installing of signing on the interstate from points as far away as Augusta, or even Bangor,” Cole said.

Councilor Whitney was outraged with the commissioner’s response.

“I’m appalled at the tack he’s taken,” she said. “And his rationale, that a sign will imply that there’s only one way to get there from here, is ludicrous to me.”

Milam said he was concerned about two things in the commissioner’s response. First, he said, the commissioner did not respond to the right question. The commissioner denied a request for a sign designating a route to the midcoast and Down East regions.

“What we asked for was a sign that designated a route to the bridge, which the commissioner has said is a destination in itself,” Milam said.

Milam and several councilors also pointed out that there are already a number of signs on the interstate that direct motorists to use a specific route to arrive at a destination.

Among them are: a sign in Augusta that designates exit 302 as the route to get to the University of Maine at Fort Kent; signs that designate routes to the Boothbay Harbor Region, to Baxter State Park, to ski resort areas, and to the Acadia and Down East regions through Bangor and Brewer.

Carol Morris, the DOT’s spokeswoman for the bridge project, said Friday that existing guidelines and regulations, including Maine’s billboard law, make adding signs a difficult process.

“We regularly have to balance the need for having directions with the public’s clear desire regarding Maine’s scenery to not clutter it up with advertising,” Morris said.

Morris said there was room for discussion on the issue, but also pointed out that a number of other steps will be taken to promote the bridge and observatory as a destination. DOT and the Department of Conservation, which will manage the observatory in conjunction with the nearby Fort Knox Historic Site, have discussed possibilities along with the BridgeFest Committee, which is planning festivities for the grand opening of the bridge this summer.

The Town Council, however, wants to make sure that future discussion includes the sign on Interstate 95, and plans to contact surrounding communities and the state representatives in those areas.

“This is not just a Bucksport issue,” Whitney said. “This is a regional issue.”

The bridge opened to traffic at the end of December. The observatory is scheduled to open sometime in the spring in conjunction with the opening of Fort Knox for the season. The town hopes to have a sign in place on the interstate by that time.