By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

For the first time, the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation
Committee (PACTS) is approaching Maine’s congressional delegation to
support between $50 and $100 million for area transportation projects
in the 2009 federal transportation bill.

Congress is expected to approve funds on the 2010 to 2015 transportation bill possibly next year.

The Veterans Memorial Bridge, which connects South Portland and
Portland over the Fore River, is at the top of the PACTS high priority
list. Rebuilding the bridge is expected to cost $45 million. The bridge
is considered a vital evacuation route off of the Portland pennisula.

PACTS is the metropolitan planning organization for the Portland region
which include 15 municipalities, public transit providers, the MDOT,
the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration,
the Maine Turnpike Authority and several other private and public
transportation organizations.

“The Veterans Memorial Bridge proposal is a Portland and South Portland
bridge and we put that on the list because there are a lot of bridges
in the state and the country reaching the end of their useful lives and
we asked the [MDOT] last fall what they were planning for the major
bridges in the Portland area and they highlighted the Veterans Memorial
Bridge as a priority,” PACTS Director John Duncan said.

Duncan said the PACTS committee asked its members to come develop some
suggestions to submit to Maine’s congressional delegation.

In addition to the Veterans Memorial Bridge project, the top four high
priority projects include purchasing buses, ferry and other vehicles at
a cost of roughly $22.5 million; building phase II of the Gorham Bypass
at a cost of roughly $35 million and adding travel lanes to I-295
between Exits 5 and 7 at an estimated cost of $30 million.

“There was just a lot of energy around expanding the public
transportation system in our region,” Duncan said about citizens who
attended a Feb. 12 public forum about the projects. “I think in this
world of climate change that we should be using public transportation
more and walking more and spending less money on roads and certainly
that makes sense. That’s what the vast majority of people said at the
forum.”

According to comments from the recent public forum, several attendants
advocated for more investments in passenger rail and asked PACTS to
move a passenger rail to Brunswick proposal, with an estimated cost of
$100 million, closer to the top of the list. Attendants also largely
considered widening I-295 to be detrimental to the environment and an
ineffective way to combat congestion.

The Veterans Memorial Bridge project garnered broad support, but
attendants advocated for the new bridge to include a bike and
pedestrian path with safe connections on both the Portland and South
Portland sides.

MDOT Bridge Management Engineer James Foster said the deck of the
Veterans Memorial Bridge is in poor condition. The super structure is
in satisfactory condition and the sub-structure is in fair condition,
he said. At 52 feet in width, the bridge is too narrow for the amount
of traffic it carries, he said.

Built in 1954, Veterans Memorial is one of 386 bridges on MDOT’s watch list.

“[The list is] defined as bridges that are at risk of being posted or closed within the next 10 years,” Foster said.

Foster said further analysis will likely include looking at pedestrian
and bicycle access on the bridge and whether or not the structure
warrants a median divider. In terms of width, he said the bridge is
likely to expand from 52 feet to 75 or 80 feet to meet current needs.

If there are no federal funds available for the project, Foster said it would likely be delayed.

“I think this bridge would be competing with other bridges and if
there’s insufficient funding there are probably other higher priority
bridges,” he said.

Duncan said the committee hopes to narrow its list of projects by the end of the year.

“I believe we will create a short list of two or three or four projects
and present them to each of the 15 city and town councils in our region
and ask them for support and we’ll also do the same with the transit
systems in our area and that of course could be and presumably will be
a somewhat dynamic process in that new ideas will come up,” he said.