AUBURN – A rain delay on a Minot Avenue-Washington Street road project Monday means traffic will be snarled today. The work will close the northbound ramp connecting Minot Avenue to Washington Street.

“It really didn’t even rain, but it was enough,” said Paul Niehoff, Auburn pavement management technician. “What happens is, you cannot pave on a wet surface, especially when it is already paved.”

State crews are “shimming” the northbound and southbound sections of Washington Street this summer. That involves putting a new layer of asphalt on top of the existing pavement. The work will force inbound traffic from Minot Avenue to continue south on Washington Street before turning around and continuing north. The ramp work should be finished later today, if the weather cooperates, Niehoff said.

– Scott Taylor
Study passes council muster

AUBURN – Not all Auburn councilors are eager for a new turnpike interchange.

Councilor Belinda Gerry said she couldn’t support a more in-depth study of a new exit from the Maine Turnpike until she knew what it would do to surrounding neighborhoods.

“Until I know what it will do to homes and the neighborhoods there, to mill rates and property values, I will not support it,” she said.

She was in the minority, however. Councilors voted to 6-1 to keep studying the interchange. The Lewiston City Council is set to vote on the matter tonight. The Androscoggin Transportation Resource Center is beginning an 18-month study of a new Lewiston-Auburn interchange.

Two plans call for building a full interchange, either on Auburn’s Riverside Drive or Lewiston’s River Road. A third plan would put a full interchange on the Auburn side and a half-interchange across the river on River Road. The half-interchange would allow traffic coming to or going from areas south of Lewiston to enter or exit.

“Exits mean economic development for a city,” Mayor Normand Guay said. Every other metropolitan area in Maine has at least four exits off of the turnpike. Lewiston-Auburn have two.

“What we are doing is trying to let the study go forward and answer your questions,” Guay said. “We’re not approving it tonight. We’re just looking into it more to find out what does actually work.”

– Scott Taylor