DIXFIELD – Barring any unforeseen complications, the slow, bumpy, dusty ride across the state’s two-mile reconstruction project on Route 2 should get smoother this month.

That’s the good news for the $2.7 million project which begins one mile east of the Newton Brook Rest Area and extends east to the foot of Morrison Hill.

“We hope to pave a section of it in July,” said Route 2 Dixfield Project Manager Ernie Gallant, a construction manager with the Maine Department of Transportation at its Division 7 headquarters in Dixfield. “That’s the first third of the (three-section) job, if all goes as planned. That first third-section is all graveled and ready for final grading.”

That section is the part that’s closest to the Newton Brook Rest Area.

The bad news, however, is that contractor M and H Logging of Rangeley will soon be ripping up and grinding old pavement from the last stretch of road between the foot of Morrison Hill to where the pavement ends now, Gallant said Tuesday.

“That first third will be paved before they tear up the last third for traffic maintenance purposes. It has been tough to maintain the road with traffic on it, but the traffic has been very reasonable with us,” he said in reference to the demeanor of drivers.

Current heavy excavation work includes a cut-and-fill operation to improve the highway’s horizontal and vertical alignment and installation of two box culvert extension bridges, Gallant said. Work has already commenced on the first box culvert. Most of the drainage work has been completed.

In addition to widening, straightening and aligning the heavily traveled highway, Gallant said the hazardous Common Road-Route 2 intersection “will be greatly improved.”

However, because Route 2 is being widened, the grade at that intersection will be a bit steeper than it is already. Common Road enters Route 2 at a 5 percent grade. That will be increased to 6 percent when the Route 2 work is completed and could pose a problem for inattentive drivers coming upon the stop sign.

“We’re following Newton Brook, so if we raised the road (to lessen the grade), we would have had to fill in the brook. The new (Route 2) road will be wider, so to get the width, you have to go down. It’s being lowered 6 to 7 feet, so the Common Road is going to be steeper when it’s done,” Gallant said.

Plans for that section show a guardrail being placed on Route 2 that rounds the corner of the Norton Road intersection with Route 2.

However, it’s not yet clear if the Norton-Common Road intersection will be aligned so that drivers who fail to stop when exiting Common Road onto Route 2 don’t end up in Newton Brook as some drivers have done in the past.

Currently, the two side roads are not aligned with each other.

“If people go screaming across (Route 2) on the Common Road, they’re going to end up in the brook. It’s a situation that may have to be fixed,” Gallant added.

The entire project is expected to be completed by Nov. 1.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com