AUBURN – The Minot Avenue rotary in Auburn, Main Street in Lewiston and Upland Road in Lisbon are the top local priorities for state transportation spending in the next two years, according to local planning officials.

Those recommendations, worth about $6.5 million in state and federal money, will now go to the Maine Department of Transportation to be included in its two-year budget. The spending plan will go to the state Legislature for final approval.

If approved, work on the projects could begin as early as October 2005.

“It all involves a bit of horse-trading,” said Lisbon Town Manager Curtis Lunt. “After all the planning and the math, there needs to be a little negotiation.”

Lunt and members of the Androscoggin Transportation Resource Center’s policy committee reviewed a list of 23 projects in Lewiston, Auburn and Lisbon Thursday morning that members wanted included in the state’s Biennial Transportation Improvement Program. That’s the state’s two-year budget for road improvements and projects. Bob Thompson, executive director of the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, said the area could expect to receive $6.5 million.

“You don’t have to look far down on this list to see that $6.5 million won’t go very far,” Thompson said.

The list ranked projects based on the amount of traffic on each road, and that put projects in the Twin Cities near the top.

“Too much is based on traffic,” Lunt said. Work on Lisbon’s Upland Court was initially rated near the bottom. A new school on Mill Street has increased traffic on Upland Court between Mill Street and Ridge Road, making reconstruction necessary.

The committee agreed to move that project closer to the top. The new list puts a reconstruction project for Auburn’s Minot Avenue-Washington Street rotary at the top, along with plans to widen Main Street from Russell to Bearce streets in Lewiston. They also put project engineering costs for Sabattus Street, Russell Street and Upland Court from Mill Street west in the two-year budget.