WATERVILLE — The public and city officials will have a chance on Monday to ask questions and air concerns about plans to reconstruct Trafton Road at a meeting hosted by the state Department of Transportation.
The public meeting will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the council chamber on the third floor of The Center at 93 Main St. downtown.
The part of Trafton Road targeted for reconstruction is about a 1-mile stretch, from Eight Rod Road to West River Road.
Ernie Martin, senior project manager for transportation department, said Thursday that a preliminary design for road reconstruction will be presented Monday.
The road is not built to any standards and the department plans to correct that and build 11-foot travel lanes with 4-foot shoulders and correct any horizontal or vertical problems, he said.
The department considers the road work a priority since the Trafton Road interchange — the new exit 124 of Interstate 95 — was completed this summer and traffic in the area of the road has increased, according to Martin.
“So we’re going to, hopefully, try to push this along at a greater scale to get it built to a standard,” he said.
Officials are monitoring traffic in the area to determine volume and where vehicles are traveling, Martin said.
When asked when the reconstruction will start, Martin said he hopes to have discussions with other department officials to be able to answer that question at Monday’s meeting. The cost of the project also is not set in stone, though the city share is $500,000. Martin said he and others are working on numbers to try to present a project cost at Monday’s meeting.
City Manager Michael Roy said Thursday that the meeting is not about the interchange or problems with speeding vehicles.
“I’m hoping to hear that they will be developing plans for the rebuild of the Trafton Road because the city certainly acknowledges that with increased traffic from the interchange, that road is or will be inadequate to handle the volume and the types of traffic,” Roy said. “I’m not sure it’s inadequate today, but an upgrade needs to happen in the fairly near future.”
He said he also hopes to hear department officials say the engineering work will start soon, if it hasn’t already.
City councilors on Oct. 17 voted unanimously to approve a tax increment financing district and related development plan for Trafton Road.
The 7-0 vote followed a brief statement by Councilor Sydney Mayhew, R-Ward 4, who said approving the TIF is an invitation to expand economic development. A resident also complained to city officials that motorists are speeding in the area of Trafton Road, creating an unsafe situation.
The council on Oct. 3 took a first vote to approve the TIF, which would encompass three lots totaling 144 acres and is designed to help create jobs and expand the tax base, according to city officials.
Before the new $5 million Interstate 95 interchange at Trafton Road was built, the city entered into an agreement with the state Department of Transportation and the developer, Trafton Properties, that the city would help rebuild Trafton Road. The TIF will allow the city to capture new tax dollars for that area and fund its share of the cost of rebuilding the road, according to Roy.
The TIF allows the city a source of funding to pay for its share, which is limited to $500,000. The state would pick up the rest of the construction cost, which earlier was estimated at $1.5 million.
At the Oct. 17 meeting, West River Road resident Susan Cobb stood to say she lives around the corner from Trafton Road and that traffic in the area has tripled and people are driving 65 to 70 mph there.
“It’s dangerous,” Cobb said. “My mailbox has been taken out twice, and I live about 13 feet from the road.”
Funded by federal, state and private money, the full interchange at mile 124, which includes northbound and southbound on and off ramps, opened in mid-July.
The new interchange at Trafton Road is drawing interest from companies working in the areas of logistics and transportation, precision manufacturing, construction, marine technology and aquaculture, environmental services and energy.
The transportation department plans to rebuild Trafton Road to accommodate the changes and increased traffic. Businesses, city officials and those who live in the area say many more people are traveling Trafton Road to enter and exit I-95 at the interchange. Trafton Properties, which provided major funding for the interchange, already has a building that is fully occupied with businesses at the corner of Trafton and West River roads. That 227,000-square-foot building is the former Wyandotte Mill.
Trafton Properties owns 921 acres in Sidney and Waterville. In August the company got approval from the city’s Planning Board to build next to the former mill a 120,000-square-foot commercial building to house new businesses.
The interchange project was funded by Trafton Properties, which pitched in $1.81 million plus engineering and other costs, a $1 million federal Economic Development Administration grant and $2 million from the state DOT.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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