Neighbors critical of lane changes for Center, Turner and Union streets

AUBURN – A proposed Center Street Walgreens would tie up roads north of downtown and send traffic onto smaller side streets, neighbors told developers Wednesday.

“It’s clear you’re not from around here, sir,” Joe Mailey, of 82 Webster St., told developers and traffic engineers. “You need to go down there about 4:30 p.m. and just get an eyeful. You’d really enjoy it.”

Developers from BCD Ventures, representing Walgreens, hope to build a 14,370-square-foot pharmacy with a drive-through on three lots on the eastern side of Center Street, immediately south of the Irving Oil at 21 Center St.

The pharmacy would replace three buildings there now – the Specialty Automotive Services shop at 1 Center St., the Number One Chinese restaurant at 197 Turner and Morin Antiques at 195 Turner.

First, the company needs a traffic permit from the city. Planning Director David Galbraith said Wednesday’s meeting was designed to gauge the public mood on the proposed changes.

“This meeting is not to consider the design guidelines, but the impact on the rest of the city,” Galbraith said.

Developers are proposing to change the flow of traffic at the intersection where Center, Turner and Union streets meet. That’s controlled by traffic signals, with each street having two lanes of traffic going in either direction.

“I think everybody knows that right now, this intersection doesn’t work very well,” said Peter Hedrich of Gray-based traffic engineers Gorrill-Palmer. “Most of the movements there are slow, there’s a lot of queuing, a lot of traffic stacking.”

Developers wouldn’t change the lanes northbound off of Union Street and Turner Street. They’d reduce the southbound lanes off of Center Street, however. Southbound Center Street would gain a left-turn lane dedicated to the Walgreens and a single lane would continue south toward downtown on Turner Street.

The northern spur of Turner Street, coming from the residential neighborhoods, would change as well. Those cars would no longer be able to turn left and continue north onto Center Street; they could only go straight onto Turner Street or turn right onto Union Street.

Those changes would make traffic smoother, Hedrich said, but the 35 attendees at Wednesday’s meeting disagreed.

“I’d like to know what kind of study you did of the impacts on Lake Auburn Avenue,” said Robert Cailer of 203 Summer St. Hedrich said engineers didn’t study that street.

“That’s what I thought, because Lake Auburn Avenue is not of consequence to whatever your plans are,” Cailer said. The mostly residential street is north of the intersection, but has an exit onto Center Street. Cailer said he expects drivers would begin choosing that street as a way to avoid the new intersection.

“If this goes forward, there should be a minimum of three traffic tables put up on Lake Auburn Avenue, and I feel Walgreens should pay for them,” Cailer said. “Otherwise there’s going to be kids killed, and there’s going to be elderly folks injured or killed.”

Traffic tables are similar to speed bumps.

Judy Webber of 163 Whitney St. said the changes would strand residents who want to go north on Center Street. They could no longer turn left onto Center Street.

“This is confusing, and I don’t understand what the big deal is letting us make a left turn so we can get to the Irving station,” she said.

City Manager Glenn Aho told developers that public mood for the project wasn’t on Walgreens’ side, but pledged city staff would work with them to find a better site.

But Joe Celeste of BCD Ventures said Walgreens wouldn’t be interested. The company had selected the site based on computer models and planning tools. It was one of two sites that fit. The other is the intersection of Court and Minot streets.

“I don’t understand why you’d push this and squash your project into a site based on computer models and statistics,” Aho said. “Is there a possible way that we could add a human element into this decision?”

Celeste said developers would regroup based on Wednesday’s meeting to figure out their next steps.