DIXFIELD – Drivers on Route 2 in Dixfield, Bethel and Gilead should anticipate delays this year and next due to nearly $12 million worth of heavy road reconstruction work expected to start this summer.

A $4.85 million project will fix nearly two miles in Dixfield, starting from a half-mile north of the intersection of Canton Point Road and Route 2 at Twin Rivers Lumber and the Maine Department of Transportation Region 3 complex, to where the last project ended, MDOT engineer Heath Cowan said Friday. The two-year project goes out to bid next month.

Besides rebuilding the road, S-curves will be realigned to straighten them out.

That’s also the focus of a $7 million project to fix four miles of a nearly six-mile section of Route 2 between Gilead and Bethel, now known as The Gap. It has been the scene of many accidents – mostly involving tractor-trailer trucks – due to its deteriorating surface, sharp curves, narrowness and northern exposure. That project is expected to go out to bid in April.

“It’s great news for Bethel,” Town Manager Scott Cole said Friday. “Mile for mile, they’ve only got so much money … and that’s some of the most challenging road work in Maine. By logic, the worst gets done last because of funding.”

Three years ago, MDOT only had enough money to improve either end of The Gap. For just under $7.5 million, a four-mile stretch between Route 2 and the Fleming Road in Bethel to the vicinity of Route 2 and Route 5, was completed, along with about 1 miles in Gilead from the Maine-New Hampshire line east to the vicinity of Wild River Bridge.

Cowan said the nearly two-mile stretch near Wild River Bridge won’t be done this time due to funding. Instead, the two worst sections will be fixed.

“We’re going to do the section next to Pleasant River Bridge, the location of that fatality involving a college student two years ago, fixing that dipsy-do curve and extending about two miles toward New Hampshire,” Cowan said of the first one.

He was referring to a slight, but tight curve that banks east-bound traffic toward the David and Debbie Luxton home and the Pleasant River behind it, and the drowning death of Emily Fletcher.

Fletcher, 21, of Auburn, was driving home from college on the night of Dec. 18, 2004, when she lost control while either talking on her cell phone or after hanging up, and over-corrected in the curve, according to a Bethel police investigation. Her 1991 Volvo sedan narrowly missed the Luxton house, struck a tree beyond it, rolled and crashed upside down through ice, submerging in the river.

According to the Luxtons, the curve has also claimed a Molson Golden beer truck, a double-trailer pulp truck, a tractor-trailer car carrier, and their neighbor, whose car ended up hung up and dangling over the Pleasant River Bridge.

Regarding the project, David Luxton said Friday afternoon, “Good things come to those who wait.”

The second stretch 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. A mountain of ledge must be blasted out, which, Cowan said, will cost about $3.5 million.

“We’re literally between a rock and a hard place. We’ve got the mountain on one side and the railroad on the other. We’re not going to move the railroad, so, we have to move the mountain,” he said.