SABATTUS – After two decades of waiting, Sabattus will soon get an on-ramp to Maine’s biggest highway.

The new exit – No. 84 – is on Route 9, about one mile south of Route 126. The Maine Turnpike Authority plans to open the new $7.8 million interchange no later than Nov. 12.

“We’re confident that it will be done on time, perhaps even a little early,” said Dan Paradee, spokesman for the Maine Turnpike Authority. “There’s still a lot to do, but it’s moving along well.”

Road workers are currently paving the ramps. Still to go is the installation of guardrails, striping and new lighting. New route signs are already up, though covered in tarps.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls from people wondering when it’ll open,” Paradee said. “We know they have been waiting a long time.”

For some people in Sabattus and surrounding towns, it will be a huge convenience, said Rudy Gayton, who began lobbying for an exit in the small town 20 years ago.

People who commute to Augusta or Portland might see 10 or 15 minutes shaved off their commutes, said Gayton, who lives a few hundred yards from the new exit and chairs the town’s Board of Selectmen.

Several area towns, including Lisbon, Wales and Greene, will likely have some growth, though a boom is unlikely, she said.

Sabattus already caps new construction by issuing only 35 building permits each year. And though other towns will likely see a shift in traffic patterns, it won’t be enough to cause dramatic changes, said Don Craig, transportation director for the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments.

Even Lewiston’s Sabattus Street is not likely to see a huge change, Craig said.

On average, about 11,200 cars travel Route 126 in Sabattus every day. About 10,000 a day drive this section of the Maine Turnpike, Craig said.

Those numbers, particularly on Route 126, will probably stay about the same, said Craig. The new exit is likely to attract commuters from other parts of Route 9, drawing some people from the Lisbon area headed north to Augusta and people from Greene and Wales who are headed south but wish to avoid Lewiston.

“There will be some different cars on the roads, but the increases will be insignificant,” Craig said.

Probably the biggest changes have already happened, Gayton said.

Two years ago, the state rebuilt Route 9 from the turnpike to Route 126. The bridge across the highway was widened and the state has promised to rebuild another seven-mile stretch of Route 9, from the turnpike to Route 196 in Lisbon

And last year, Sabattus built a new town office just a few hundred yards from the exit.

“This has been different from all the other recent interchanges we’ve built,” said Paradee, the turnpike spokesman. The last two exits, at the Portland Jetport and the Rand Road in Westbrook, were built entirely because the traffic volumes demanded them.

This construction was always about convenience, Paradee said.

There’s an element of safety, too. Between Lewiston and Gardiner, there is currently a 22-mile stretch without an exit.

Construction on the new exit began in July 2002. It was complicated by a wetland at the site, Maxwell Brook, which needed permitting and remediation. So, besides building the ramps, workers built a small pond too.

However, when the tarps come off the signs and interchange opens, it’ll be done right, Paradee said.

“It’s probably a good thing it takes as long as it does,” he said.