LEWISTON — A plan to bring a bit of direction to travel in the downtown Twin Cities could get City Council reviews in December.
The Androscoggin Land Trust has nearly completed designing signs for Lewiston-Auburn and beyond.
Ideally, the signs would unify travel throughout the communities along the Androscoggin River, from Gorham, N.H., through Lewiston-Auburn, said Auburn Mayor Jonathan LaBonte, who also is the land trust executive director.
The effort starts in Lewiston-Auburn with three types of signs designed to bring a sense of place to the area.
“It’s hard to navigate into Lewiston and Auburn and find your ultimate destination, especially if that’s the downtown or the riverfront area,” LaBonte said. “So we want to help visitors and tourists navigate from both interstate exits to find the downtown, the riverfront.”
The signs would be about 11 feet tall. Outside the Twin Cities and along river trails, the signs would be green and blue with maps of the Androscoggin Greenway and River Trail and directions to parking areas, trail heads and canoe portages.
Colors would be red, blue and orange in the cities. The signs would have Auburn listed on one side, Lewiston on the other, with a blue stripe between them, meant to signify the river.
“They are pretty clean and modern-looking and people seem to like the way the cities are represented on the top,” Lewiston City Administrator Ed Barrett said.
One variety would provide basic travel directions for drivers, point the way to Museum L-A in Lewiston, Festival Plaza in Auburn or downtown parking, for example.
“That’s step one, to get people into Lewiston-Auburn,” LaBonte said. “The second step is get them out of their cars and walking.”
That second type of sign would contain more detailed information, with directions to restaurants, shopping districts and a map of the downtown.
The third variety would provide historical information about certain spots.
“That picks up on projects Museum L-A has done over the last few years,” Barrett said.
LaBonte said the land trust presented the proposed designs to municipal staff in both cities and to the Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce’s Regional Image Committee in September.
“There has been some excitement that the designs are simple, yet urban and modern,” LaBonte said. “I think that was a concern, that these would have an industrial or hard feel to them.”
Barrett agreed. Creating new downtown directional signs is a recommendation from the River Front Island Master Plan, adopted this past summer by the Lewiston City Council.
“Certainly, the initial reactions have been positive,” Barrett said. “There remain questions; specifically, I’d like to know the cost estimates. That’s going to play a role in all of this.”
LaBonte said the land trust hopes to wrap up work on proposed designs in November and bring them before the city councils in Lewiston and Auburn in December.
“Hopefully, we can talk about them this winter and perhaps by next spring or summer, we can see these in the ground,” LaBonte said.


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