NORWAY — Potholes and washboard conditions on Main Street and Lake Road have been a steady source of complaints recently, but Town Manager Dennis Lajoie said there isn’t much the town can do.

Main Street and Lake Road are both state roads. Lajoie said that while the town could choose to do work on the roads, it would be using local taxpayers’ money to pay for a road that’s supposed to be maintained by the Maine Department of Transportation.

Lajoie said the town chose to repair a section of the road about five or six years ago, and spent $35,000. He said spending money on Main Street and Lake Road would take resources from other road projects the town has planned.

“When we do a state road, that money could go to other roads,” Lajoie said.

But there isn’t a timeline for when work on Main Street and Lake Road will begin. Usually, the Department of Transportation sets up a two-year schedule for road repairs, but Lajoie hasn’t seen Main Street or Lake Road on that list.

“We’d like to have at least some kind of idea from the state when they’re coming down to do something,” he said. “I’ve been in contact with DOT and local folks. Nothing’s going to happen this year, unless they miraculously get some money from someplace.”

Lajoie said not knowing a timeline for the repairs hinders the town. If the state doesn’t plan to tackle either road for 10 years, Lajoie said, the town will likely have to do some repairs. But if Main Street and Lake Road are slated in the next few years, the town doesn’t have to spend any money.

“At least if we can find out when we are on the schedule, if we’re on the schedule 10 years from now, then (the town) has to do something. If we’re on next year, (the state) can do something.”

Lajoie said he has a meeting coming up in August with regional MDOT officials to talk about the roads and look at them with both MDOT and the town engineer. However, the town has direct control over the state of the sidewalks on Main Street, and Lajoie said those are getting a face-lift.

Thirty-two years ago, Norway received a Community Development Block Grant, and put in sidewalks. Lajoie said the sidewalks have held up pretty well, but some sections have tripping hazards. Around the same time the sidewalks were constructed, trees were planted along the road. Some of the trees have since died, but the holes in the concrete around the trees to open them up for water remain, creating a tripping hazard.

Rather than ripping up the whole sidewalk, Lajoie said, the town is working to identify tripping hazards and fixing them as best as they can, piece by piece, block by block.

The town also applied for a Canopy Grant, a funding program from the Maine Forest Service that provides money for 10 trees on Main Street. Typically, funds from that grant come through in the spring, but the town got the money later than expected.

“We can’t plant them now,” Lajoie said, “so we pretty much identified where they’re going to go. There’s places where there’s already cutouts on the sidewalk. Once those trees are planted in the fall, then the other ones that are opening that we don’t need to open will be concreted in.”

And while the town has some concrete plans to fix the sidewalks and plant new trees on Main Street, Lajoie said, there’s not much the town can do to assuage complaints, other than to continue to put pressure on the MDOT and local legislators.

“Unfortunately, the town understands that there are complaints on both roads,” he said. “We’re having discussions with DOT about when they’re going to come in and do some work on them, but we don’t know a time frame, and if people have complaints, we’ll take the calls, but realize we turn around the calls to MDOT.”

Copy the Story Link