By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

PARIS – The head of EnterpriseMaine is slated to meet with Congressman Mike Michaud today as part of a plan to enlist support from federal and state legislators to fix Route 26 as quickly as possible.

“We’re working to build a broad political coalition, to fight for the money we need,” Brett Doney, president and chief executive officer of EnterpriseMaine, said Thursday. “We want to see Route 26 brought up to minimum federal safety standards as soon as possible.”

EnterpriseMaine is a group of nonprofit and for-profit organizations dedicated to economic development.

Doney already has met with representatives from U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office as well as some state legislators and officials from the state Department of Transportation to discuss securing funds to repair the state artery and speeding up improvements.

Additionally, Doney held a meeting in December to jump-start the Route 26 Corridor Coalition, which was successful in the 1990s in securing funds for Route 26 but has waned in recent years.

Coalition members will soon meet to review a list of needed improvements to Route 26 that was developed in the 1990s. “It’s good to relook at it; we’ve had growth in different areas,” Doney said.

About 40 percent of the projects on that list have been completed or are currently funded. Doney said the coalition will examine whether any projects should be reprioritized or if new ones should be added.

The coalition includes representatives from communities along Route 26 including Woodstock, Paris, Norway, Oxford, Poland and Gray, and it is open to anyone who is interested in improving the road.

Route 26 was recently listed as the fifth-most-congested highway in the state, but in many sections the road falls far below federal highway safety standards. Doney said Route 26 has been repaired in a “checkerboard” fashion while millions of dollars have been allocated elsewhere to fund new projects including a $20 million highway that will connect Houlton to Presque Isle.

“I don’t want to start picking on other regions,” he said. “But our position is, before you start building new roads elsewhere, there’s a responsibility to start fixing existing roads, particularly when new roads serve less people than existing roads.”

Moreover, some scheduled improvements to Route 26 have been pushed back by the $130 million in project deferments recently announced by the state. For example, construction funding is delayed that would build a center turn lane and upgrade drainage and pavement on a stretch of Route 26 in Oxford beginning at Burlington Homes and extending north to Skeetfield Road.

DOT officials have said construction should begin on that stretch in late 2007, but Doney said he is skeptical. “I would be less concerned (about the road) if I really believed that. You just can’t count on any of these projects until a construction contract is signed,” he said.

Improvements to other sections including a stretch in Poland are delayed as well.

Doney said he is uncertain if the Legislature and Gov. John Baldacci are fully aware of the road’s deteriorating condition. “I don’t think they are aware of how critical the need is. Either that, or they think other regions are more important than ours.”