STRONG — Townspeople voted Tuesday night to close Chandler Road at one end to discourage drivers from speeding along the through road.

The concern brought more residents to a special town meeting Tuesday evening than to the annual March town meeting. By 6 p.m., most seats on the floor were filled and many people stood along the walls and in the hallway.

The town owns 21 roads, and other than Chandler Road, only four are through roads. Residents on Chandler had asked selectmen to make the road a dead end, closing it at the south end and allowing access from Route 4 at the former CAT Lumber property.

Voters decided the matter by written ballot, voting 54-34 to close the road at the south end at a date to be set by selectmen.

Resident Scott Dyar protested that townspeople were “being forced into making a decision” without having all the facts.

“What is this going to cost me and every other taxpayer in this town?” he asked.

Selectman and Road Supervisor James Burrill estimated costs to close the road would be between $1,000 and $2,000.

“And if we vote to close it tonight, it won’t be closed in the morning,” Burrill said.

Chandler Road resident Gilbert Reed said he had ascertained that a landowner would provide the town with an easement for a school bus and snowplow turnaround. Many residents suggested that the hundreds of vehicles traveling on Chandler Road took the burden off a sharp curve closer to town at the Sandy River bridge.

That section of road has deteriorated, and the Maine Department of Transportation has not been funded to correct the problems. Mike Pond suggested the increase in traffic would result in deadly accidents at the intersections of routes 145 and 4.

“We put hundreds of thousands of dollars into Main Street, and we can’t fix that intersection,” Pond said.

Another resident suggested that state and county police ought to take stronger measures to control all speeders, including those who travel on Main Street in front of the elementary school.

“If you arrest people often enough, they slow down or take another route,” former Road foreman Robert Boyd said. “Everybody speeds, but it seems to me that if police did their job, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

Sandra Yeaton, a resident of Chandler Road for 32 years, recalled that the road was traveled rarely, but the increase in traffic had added hundreds of speeders.

“That road wasn’t meant for the volume,” she said. “Do we have to wait until someone gets killed?”

In other business Tuesday night, voters also approved the town taking over management and billing of its shared septic system and of town officials accepting a $400,000 grant to redo water lines along Lambert Hill, Church Hill and High Street.