AUBURN — The future of a popular but pothole-riddled shortcut around Lake Auburn could depend on traffic counts taken earlier this month.

State officials began testing the volume of traffic on the Summer Street Extension to determine if it makes sense to fix the road or to close it for good. The extension is a 1,900-foot spur that connects Youngs Corner Road to West Auburn Road along Lake Auburn’s southwestern edge.

Auburn Public Works Director Bob Belz said the rough patch of road is used by drivers headed out of town along West Auburn Road, allowing them to avoid the intersection at Youngs Corner and Hotel Road.

“Otherwise, those people would have to wait at the intersection,” Belz said. “For right-hand turns, it can take some time to get through the traffic there.”

The road, along with Youngs Corner and West Auburn roads, is controlled and maintained by the Maine Department of Transportation. Belz said the road had not received any maintenance work in several years, since the state moved Auburn’s roads from the Dixfield district maintenance area to the Scarborough district.

“I think there was a lack of realization that it was actually the state’s responsibility, that it was a state maintenance area,” Belz said.

If it were a city road, Belz said he would recommend a reclamation project. That’s a moderately involved project in which crews remove the old asphalt pavement, grind it up and add a new layer of asphalt on top.

MDOT officials, meanwhile, are studying local roads around Maine to determine whether they should belong to the state.

Peter Coughlan, director of Community Services for the MDOT, said he would like to see responsibility for the Summer Street Extension go to the city.

“Our perspective is that it fits all the criteria of a local road,” Coughlan said. “And, using that criteria, it would go from state jurisdiction to the city.”

But Belz said the city doesn’t want the road in its current condition.

“And besides, I’d be reluctant to assume maintenance responsibilities for any road piecemeal,” Belz said. “I’d rather we look at transportation as a regional perspective so we don’t overlap responsibilities.”

Belz said there are other options for the road. It could get repairs but be used as a one-way road for connecting eastbound Youngs Corner Road drivers to West Auburn Road. It could also be closed as an official street and turned into part of a Lake Auburn recreation path.

“It’s not impossible, but it needs to be investigated,” Belz said.

That’s why state officials began taking traffic counts earlier this month, Coughlan said.

“We wanted to find out what it would mean to surrounding intersections, if for example, we closed it and all that traffic now had to go to Youngs Corner Road,” he said.

Coughlan said the state would not simply dump the road in Auburn’s lap.

“We’re going to take traffic counts, analyze those and see how it’s being used,” he said. “This is a collaborative discussion. We will work things out with the city, period. Ten, 15, 20 years ago, the state may have dumped a road like that on the city. But we don’t work that way now. We work things out, together.”

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