AUBURN — Putting a dedicated lane for right-turning traffic at the Court Street intersection with Turner Street makes sense, city officials say.

“It’s the way the street used to be like 10 years ago, but the city decided to change it,” City Engineer Dan Goyette said. “It’s one of those things we get a lot of complaints about.”

The city is preparing to build a new lane along Court Street, hoping it will alleviate Court Street jams caused by combining cars bound for Turner Street and those continuing west up Court Street.

Goyette and Public Works Director Bob Belz hosted a meeting for public comment on the plan Thursday night at Auburn Hall. Only one person, Bob Cavanagh of 127 Field St., attended and he said he liked the idea.

“We’ve needed that here for a long time,” Cavanagh said. “And I think people have known that we’ve needed it. It was just a matter of paying for it, I guess.”

The Maine Department of Transportation has set aside $200,000 to pay for the work. That’s meant to cover design, engineering and construction.

According to the plans, the work would add an 11-foot-wide slip lane along the northern edge of Court Street. It would allow cars aiming to turn right onto Turner Street to peel off from the rest of Court Street. Goyette said he expects bids to go out in August and work to begin early in the fall.

The new lane would go where the current sidewalk is and the brick sidewalk would be replaced farther north. The work also includes plans for new pedestrian refuge islands — one between the new slip lane and the westbound lane of Court Street and a second between the northbound and southbound lanes of Turner Street.

Cavanagh said those islands would help.

“It is tough to make it across Court Street because it is so wide,” he said.

Belz said that’s one of the reasons the slip lane was removed in the late 1990s. It was designed to make Court Street narrower and more pedestrian friendly.

“But now, when you’re coming down Court Street, you see all those cars,” Belz said. “Nobody moves, even when the light is green, and it just causes frustration.”

Engineers will draw up final project designs and prepare the project for bid.

“It’s a project that people are pretty happy with,” Goyette said. “We like it like that.”

[email protected]