Auburn councilors voted unanimously Monday to end the city’s participation in a joint initiative with Lewiston on transportation issues and formed its own committee dealing with a broader range of transportation matters in the city.

The joint initiative, called the Complete Streets Committee, met once a month to promote and advise on transportation and public infrastructure matters, including pedestrians and nonmotorized vehicles such as bicycles. It also recommended policies to various governing agencies related to that goal.

According to Auburn Mayor Jeff Harmon, it has been seven years since the Complete Streets Committee brought forward any recommendations to the Planning Board or City Council.

The council Monday ended the city’s participation in the committee and formed a new Parking and Traffic Safety Committee, with the goal of more robust public engagement and more recommendations for pedestrian safety, bicycle and vehicle traffic, parking management and school-zone safety.

Three people, including Complete Streets Committee member and Auburn resident Katherine Truitt, spoke against replacing the committee or aired concerns that the new committee would not address certain elements of public safety regarding traffic.

Truitt said she wanted to see the new committee continue to be a joint effort with Lewiston because so much traffic flows between the cities.

Councilor Adam Platz said it’s hard when a committee people are serving on goes away, speaking from firsthand experience when he was on the city’s Conservation Committee. He thanked the volunteers on the Complete Streets Committee and hoped they would continue with their work for Auburn.

“I can say, as a recovering Conservation Committee member, you can still do really good work even if your committee name changes,” he said.

The formation of the new committee does not change any traffic safety standards outlined in the city’s Complete Streets ordinance, passed in 2017, Harmon said. The new committee’s work will align with that and other traffic safety ordinances, he said.

The Parking and Traffic Safety Committee will assume responsibilities that were spread across multiple groups, addressing matters such as crosswalk placement, signage, sidewalk conditions, bike lanes, ADA accommodations, speed management, parking time limits, permit zones and off-street city parking pricing, among other issues. Membership of the committee includes a city councilor and four residents.

Harmon said the new committee will adopt the goals of the Complete Streets Committee, as well as other goals regarding public safety around traffic, focusing more on Auburn. 

Councilor Timothy Cowan said the emphasis on Auburn was one of the reasons he favored the new committee. “This gives us more to really focus on the pieces in Auburn,” he said.