To allow night work or not? On Nov. 6, the South Portland City Council
will consider a change to the ordinance prohibiting any night time
construction within the city’s limits. The change would grant the
council authority to waive this prohibition. Currently, there are no
mechanisms for granting exceptions to the rule. If the ordinance change
is approved on Nov. 6 and again following a public hearing and second
vote on Nov. 20, the council could then consider a request by the Maine
Department of Transportation to apply a waiver to it’s oft-delayed
completion of the Exit 3 improvements.



At both the Nov. 6 and Nov. 20 meetings, the council will likely hear
from the residents of Evergreen Road, Hobart, Linton Hall and other
streets that are neighbors to Interstate 295 between exits 3 and 4 who
have witnessed the highway and the sound it creates grow and grow.



While the issue of whether or not night work will proceed at this
location will not be decided at these meetings (a very public process
is planned to debate the specific proposal); enacting the ordinance
change will clear the way for such a debate.



Night work at Exit 3, all sides agree, amounts to deciding between two
bad options. Does the city allow its already frazzled residents to
endure a new spectrum of aural offenses at impossibly inconvenient
times? Or does it take into account the necessity to get an important
project– not just to South Portland but the entire metropolitan area–
done as quickly and efficiently as possible?



We hope the council takes into account more views than those
constituents who vote. There are also those who work, shop, eat and
visit South Portland. Night work will be awful for the residents of the
area. Not doing it could impact the productivity of thousands more for
months. The council needs to pass this waiver. The council and all of
the region's legislators also need to push for the installation of
sound barriers for residents who bear the burden of this important
corridor.



–Ward Peck