The project includes enlarging the intersection of the two roads to accommodate turning traffic that sometimes backs up while waiting for a traffic signal to change.

The quasi-independent state agency’s 165 employees will move, in 2020, to new headquarters on Edison Drive in Augusta.

Liz Helitzer, who has held the post based at the University of Maine at Augusta for the last six years, said she is planning to hike the entire Appalachian Trail before beginning a graduate school program in Ireland.