AUBURN – Do anything to make traffic safer, Center Street merchants said, but don’t divide their road with a median.

“If you are worried about traffic congestion, just go ahead and put up a median,” said Dennis Morgan, owner of 325 Center St. “You won’t have to worry about traffic or curb cuts because I’ll be gone. All of us Center Street businesses will be gone.”

They didn’t like the idea of building up to four roundabouts along the stretch of Route 4 between Stetson Road and Union Street either.

Instead, merchants on Wednesday urged the city to boost traffic enforcement along Center Street and better time traffic lights.

It was a rough public unveiling for a new study of Center Street traffic patterns. Engineers from Gorrill-Palmer, planners from the Androscoggin Transportation Resource Center and the city presented the rough draft plan to the public Wednesday night in Auburn Hall.

The study calls for four new rotaries between Union and Joline streets, a reconfigured Union Street bypass and smoother on- and off-ramps at the Mount Auburn Avenue overpass. All those changes would be designed to make travel on the road safer and smoother, according to engineer Tom Gorrill.

Don Craig of the transportation resource center said public comments would be included in the study, which could be finished this year. The study will be used to guide road construction projects on Center Street for years to come.

The road has serious problems, drawing daily traffic of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles during the week – and peaking at 30,000 vehicles per day on Fridays. It’s built to handle between 24,000 and 28,000 daily trips, Gorrill said. Police have responded to 240 accidents on the road over the past year, about 15 percent of all the accidents in Auburn.

The study calls for changing the road over the next 20 years. It suggests:

• Dividing the road with a solid median from Union Street Bypass north to the Mount Auburn Avenue intersection. Left-hand turns would no longer be possible.

• Center Street would get a series of four roundabouts, similar to the two built last summer along Turner Street on either side of Mount Auburn Avenue. The roundabouts would be built at intersections with North River Road, Lake Auburn Avenue, Broadview Avenue and in front of Shaw’s supermarket. Instead of turning left, drivers would use the roundabouts to change direction and backtrack to their destinations. According to the study, the roundabouts would allow the city to eliminate every traffic signal between Mount Auburn Avenue and Union Street Bypass.

• The Union Street Bypass would become a counter-clockwise rotary controlled by three traffic signals.

• The Mount Auburn Avenue overpass on- and off-ramps would be widened and set farther apart.

But those would be long-term changes and they’d only happen if traffic on the road worsened. He suggested city leaders could make Center Street last longer by timing the lights better, linking parking lots on either side of the street and encouraging drivers to plan their trips.

Chip Morrison, president of the Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce, said a solid median would put most merchants in the area out of business.

“Plus, it would drive traffic off of Center Street,” Morrison said. “People said they’d just cut down Haskell Street, down Lake Street.”

Local real estate agents and developers scolded the committee for even bringing the plans forward. Developer John Gendron said the plan’s very existence would chase possible investors away from Center Street. Georgia Chomas of Millett Realty agreed.

“Now that you’ve made this public, we have to disclose it to potential buyers,” she said. “And they won’t buy if they see this – even if it is just a plan.”