NORWAY – Changes in federal transportation funding and higher construction costs forced the state Department of Transportation to defer $130 million worth of projects across the state, delaying road improvements and bridge upgrades and replacements in several communities including Auburn, Lewiston, Poland, Turner and Fryeburg.
“We had to go back and rescramble the omelet we had made,” said Herb Thomson, communications director at DOT, on Friday.
The most expensive deferred project is $10 million in preconstruction engineering that was slated for Route 9 from Lisbon to Sabattus. A $7.7 million project in Sandy River Plantation in Franklin County that would have upgraded Route 4 also was targeted.
Construction was deferred on Main Street in Lewiston from Pettingill Street to Bearce Avenue as well as intersection upgrades at several locations in the East Side Corridor.
In Auburn, construction from Court Street to Allain Park and plans for a shared-use path from Moulton Park to Route 202 were placed on the back burner. Other deferments include improvements to Route 26 in Poland and Route 117 in Turner; new wearing surface on Walkers Bridge that carries Route 302 over the Saco River in Fryeburg; a $4.2 million replacement of the North Turner West Bridge over the Androscoggin River on the Turner-Leeds town line; and a $1.9 million replacement of the North Turner East Bridge in Leeds.
The federal government earlier this year approved new transportation funding for all states after failing to reach consensus for many months. Maine will receive $950 million over the next five years, retroactively to Oct. 1, 2004.
The retroactive funding combined with a reprioritization of projects by the federal government impacted cash flow and forced the project deferments at DOT, Thomson said. The deferred projects had been proposed for the two-year budget cycle of 2006-07.
Thomson said higher costs for construction materials, including asphalt, petroleum, steel, and concrete, also affected MDOT project priorities. “All of those components have had extraordinary cost increases,” he said.
City and town officials in several impacted communities said Friday that they were disappointed by the deferments but not necessarily surprised.
“In some respects you have to take the good with the bad,” said Phil Nadeau, assistant city administrator in Lewiston. “DOT tried to be as judicious as they could be. The pain is spread out geographically and we’re all sharing the pain.”
Nadeau said he and City Administrator James Bennett will meet with the city’s Public Works Department to revisit and possibly reprioritize future road improvements.
“Clearly we’re disappointed. I don’t think there is a community on that list that would say they aren’t. This isn’t a disaster, though. It’s manageable,” he said.
Fryeburg Town Manager Phil Covelli echoed a similar sentiment but added that he was concerned about how long the Walkers Bridge project would be put off. “Our concern is, when is it deferred to?” he said.
Covelli said a replacement of the bridge’s wearing surface would have been maintenance that could prevent potential accidents. “It would seem preventive maintenance is in DOT’s favor,” he said.
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