Mexico Town Manager Joseph Derouche
Mexico: No to truck route
By Terry Karkos
Staff Writer

MEXICO – Town officials said Wednesday night that they will not agree to a truck route that bypasses the business district because it will damage the town’s economy.

“That bypass will only go through over my dead body. I’ll fight it and do whatever we have to do to keep (the traffic) coming through here,” said Town Manager Joseph Derouche, who owns businesses downtown.

The idea surfaced about a year ago to route trucks off Route 2 across Mexico Veterans’ Bridge to Route 108, over Morse Bridge in Rumford and up Falls Hill. Rumford officials say it’s a matter of safety and getting trucks out of its downtown.

Mexico officials say it’s a matter of its economy.

“This is not going to be an easy decision because there are compelling arguments on both sides,” said Norm Haggan, manager of the state highway department’s Division 7 shed in Dixfield, who has been facilitating talks between the towns for the state.

“If both towns had agreed to it, we’d have done it in a heartbeat. But now I’ve got to weigh safety versus economy. And I may not even be making the decision,” Haggan told selectmen.

“The next step is that I’ll tell Rumford selectmen that we’re now not prepared to make the truck route. But their response (on Aug. 7) was that they’ll do anything they have to do to make it happen,” he said.

Both towns will be circulating petitions supporting their respective positions and obtaining signatures from any state resident.

“So Rumford is going to pursue it above me,” Haggan said. “If I get a petition with one signature on it, nothing will be done. But if I get a petition with 10,000 names, I’d do (the bypass), but they’d have to be state of Maine residents.”

Mexico selectmen argued, and Haggan agreed, that Rumford’s safety concerns could be resolved if officials would reduce the four-lane Lincoln Avenue to two lanes at its intersection with Hancock Street, thus giving truckers more room to make the turn.

“But that idea was almost immediately dismissed by the town,” Haggan said.

Mexico Selectmen Barbara Larramee, Reggie Arsenault and Chairman Arthur Bordeau said that didn’t make sense if Rumford officials were concerned about safety.

Mexico officials pointed out that sorely-needed car traffic would follow truckers, bypassing their business section.

“Just one car that disappears from the business route affects our economy,” Derouche said.

Citing a 1992-94 study on the effects of truck route bypasses, he said there is about a 20-percent change in through-traffic, which amounts to 200 cars.

“That’s a lot. It could destroy us, especially with the local economy and the way it’s been. You look for every person you can get,” he said.

“It’s real important that trucks come through here because we’re in the convincing mode with new businesses coming in. We’re right on the edge of bringing new businesses or clients into town. We’re in a redevelopment mode and we’re on the borderline and traffic counts. So it’s critical that everything we’ve worked on since 1992 stays in place, including Route 2,” he said.

A public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, to let Mexico residents and business owners again weigh in on the issue.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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