By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

BETHEL – A state plan to reconstruct nearly six miles of Route 2 between Gilead and Bethel has been put on hold for at least another year.

According to Maine Department of Transportation Commissioner David A. Cole, the project, now known as The Gap, came in at an estimated $20 million, or $3 million to $4 million a mile.

“To put this in perspective, Maine DOT’s entire statewide, rural highway reconstruction budget for the Fiscal Year 2004-05 biennium, was $77.2 million,” Cole stated in a letter last month to Rep. Arlan Jodrey, R-Bethel.

This project alone, he added, would represent 26 percent of a typical two-year highway improvement budget, but would construct 5.7 miles of highway.

Cole stated that the section “is some of the most challenging rural highway needing improvements in Maine.”

Cole, contacted Monday afternoon in Brewer, said it was decided to send the project back to MDOT engineers to redesign the engineering in an attempt to lower project costs.

Bethel selectmen responded Monday night, approving the draft of a letter they had asked Town Manager Scott Cole, no relation, to write and send to David Cole.

“Route 2 in western Maine carries heavy interstate traffic on a year-round basis, with The Gap experiencing an inordinate amount of traffic problems due (to) its deteriorating surface, sharp curves, narrowness, and northern exposure,” Scott Cole wrote.

The stretch of highway is perched on a steep valley wall between Peabody and Pickett Henry mountains and the Androscoggin River. It shares the location with the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad.

“These topographic features, along with environmental constraints, contribute to the extraordinary challenges and cost of improving this segment of highway,” David Cole stated.

Scott Cole told selectmen Monday night that the project was on the verge of going to right of way acquisition, but “it’s been in a holding pattern for four months.”

Funding, he said, according to an MDOT planner, is available for such acquisition, but not the project itself, in which, a mountain of ledge must be blasted out.

Selectmen asked Scott Cole to send a copy of the town’s response to Gilead to use for their response. They also asked the town manager to contact commercial outfits like MeadWestvaco and Carrier Trucking, and have them bring their lobbyists in to get the road fixed.

“This is not a safe piece of highway,” board Chairman Harry Dresser Jr. said.