Several years ago, the Marketplace expanded to create sites for Town Fair Tire, Kohl’s, Dick’s and the former Circuit City. The Maine Department of Transportation approved a traffic study that required a third access point from Old Belgrade Road should more stores be added next to the Circuit City site to handle the additional traffic.

Several new stores have been built adjacent to Pier 1 Imports. Doesn’t this expansion require the same new entrance to the facility that had been mandated in the earlier traffic study? Hasn’t the resulting increased traffic count into and out of the two existing entrances achieved the same need for creating a third entrance?

A change to traffic patterns going in and out of the Marketplace from Old Belgrade Road will have a definite negative impact on that road’s residents, but this increase in use already happened when MaineGeneral Medical Center opened.

The traffic on Old Belgrade Road generated by the Marketplace would have direct access to and from Route 3 and Interstate 95 as well as connecting to Route 27 and points north. This change would reduce traffic on busy Civic Center Drive. Cars using an Old Belgrade Road entrance also would reduce the traffic on Townsend Road, a highly congested residential corridor now being used from Northern Avenue.

Other traffic control measures also should be considered, such as traffic lights on Northern Avenue at Townsend Road and at Old Belgrade Road, but the long-range planning should be done now. This section of Augusta has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. It is now in the best interest of the city to anticipate where things will go in the next 25 years and make a plan to accommodate that growth for the sake of the residents and their property values.

Paul Lessard

Belgrade


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

filed under: