PORTLAND – The Maine Turnpike will mark another milestone in its $135 million widening project when it opens two more sections of highway to three-lane traffic next month.

Plans call for opening an additional lane in each direction on the 3.7-mile section between Wells and Kennebunk and the 2.4-mile section between Biddeford and Saco.

The tentative opening is scheduled for Nov. 14.

“We’re thrilled,” said Sam Zaitlin, the chairman of the Maine Turnpike Authority. “It continues to be a very successful project, and it’s great that people will finally be able to enjoy the benefits of [the construction delays] they’ve had to put up with over the past few years.”

Two-thirds of the project is complete, according to turnpike spokesman Dan Paradee, and is moving along on schedule and on budget.

So far, the turnpike project has cost $87 million.

The project calls for a third lane in each direction between York and Scarborough. Wider shoulders, updated bridges and a new guardrail system are also part of the plan.

The first newly widened section, between South Portland and Saco, opened a year ago. Crews are putting the final touches on the two newest sections.

“Good, it won’t be so jammed up now,” Linda McRee of Biddeford said gleefully of the summer traffic on the highway.

The widening of the Maine Turnpike began in 2000 after a series of false starts.

In the late 1960s, widening began in York. But only six miles were paved before Maine’s attorney general halted the job in 1971, citing environmental regulations.

The turnpike authority made another attempt to widen the highway in the late 1980s, but environmental groups had the matter put before Mainers for a vote.

In 1991, they voted to halt any future widening and created an act that requires the state to consider alternatives before building new roads.

Voters approved the widening in 1997, a year after the authority released a report that showed increased congestion was leading to delays, higher accident rates and difficulty for emergency vehicles.