DOT to hold public meeting on Camden Route 1 north project, June 21
CAMDEN — The Maine Department of Transportation is holding a design meeting with Camden residents concerning its $7-$8 million Route 1 North project, which involves rebuilding and widening a 1.54-mile stretch of highway toward the Lincolnville town line. The public is invited to attend to talk about project details at Camden-Rockport Middle School on Knowlton Street in Camden from 4 to 6 p.m., June 21.
The rebuild, which includes the highway as well as two bridges, was expected to begin in 2017, but has been pushed forward. The DOT’s Work Plan outlines the project as beginning .56 miles north of the Sagamore Farm Road, and continuing for 1.54 miles to the Lincolnville town line. It includes a seven-foot raise of the Spring Brook Hill bridge, where vehicle crashes have been frequent, especially during the winter. According to DOT meeting minutes, there were 16 crashes alone in that section of the road in two years.
The stretch of highway passes through Camden residential and mixed-use zones, dotted with homes, a few farms, lodging establishments, and parts of the Camden Hills State Park. The 100-mile stretch of Route 1 through the Midcoast has been cited by the Federal Highway Administration in the Gateway One Corridor Plan of 2011.
The Camden Route 1 North project includes reconfiguring slopes and roadbed, clearing trees so sun can dry the highway in the winter, and creating an 11-foot travel lane with four to five-foot-wide paved shoulders on either side. The DOT, aka, the State of Maine, owns four rods — or 66 feet — of width that the highway occupies as it passes through communities.
Engineering design drawings are finished and available for review at the Camden Town Office.
The DOT’s steps are to assign valuations to properties that abut the highway, identify rights-of-ways, titles, and determine how to negotiate with landowners about either outright compensation for highway construction, or temporary construction compensation.
At a May 16 Camden Select Board meeting, DOT representatives talked with the town about the project, and citizens expressed concerns that homeowners still needed clarification about what would happen to their road-front properties.
The DOT did designate nine properties as “historic,” therefore in line for less invasive improvements.
Citizens want to know how the rural look of Route 1 north, from Camden Hills State Park to Lincolnville, will be sustained, given 20 to 40 feet of excavation will take place.
They want to know what kind of utility poles will be used, and where they will be placed. They want to know what trees are to be cut.
The DOT, represented by Brad Foley, highway program manager, said May 16 that the DOT also wants to have that discussion.
The June 21 meeting is to allow residents to talk with the DOT about plantings and supplements, “to put some screening back.”
“It’s not going to be a wholesale cutting of trees down through there,” said Foley.
In 2015, DOT Project Manager Ernie Martin, who is part of the DOT’s Midcoast office, told Penobscot Bay Pilot: “It’s a good design. It’s fully funded and it can get constructed.”
Martin said in May 2017, at the Select Board meeting, that he understood citizen concerns.
“We are going to work with everybody,” he said. “We got some huge cuts out there, but that’s because of drainage. We are going to get into the root structure and soils. There is a whole list of stakeholders that use this corridor, residents; but, it’s a commerce route, a tourist route. My job is pull this project together that meets all those users’ needs.”
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Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 706-6657
