Staff Writer 

After leading members of the Shore Road Pathway Study Committee for more than 14 months, Cape Elizabeth resident Paul Thelin has Wednesday nights back. 

Last week the group discussed its final report with members of the town council, who are expected to weigh in on the proposed pathway next month. It will be the first time town officials have discussed the pathway – which is estimated to cost nearly $900,000 to complete although residents have expressed concerns about it’s implications for residents of Shore Road and the town for nearly a year.

“I am proud of them,” Thelin said of the other committee members. “I think it’s a good report with a lot of good information.”

Thelin said members of the town council inquired about how the project would be funded, an issue he said was “out of [the committee’s] scope.”

“It was not part of our authority or in the group’s charter,” he said. “Funding is going to be difficult. In these times, people are looking once, twice and three times – and rightly so.”

For Rory Strunk – who lives on the opposite side of Shore Road from the proposed five-foot-wide, 10,200-foot long paved walkway – obtaining funding for the project is “simple.” Since November, he has co-chaired the “grassroots group” Safe Access For Everyone, or S.A.F.E., an organization he said could spearhead a private effort to fund the project. 

“We took it upon ourselves to really look at the reality of funding in this marketplace. We’re confident it would receive very strong support and funding,” he said. “The estimate, in scale and scope, is at a really believable level. The money will come from family and friends and corporate sponsors.”

For opponents of the pathway, funding is just one of the factors that make the project unfeasible. Tom Dunham has lived just off Shore Road for more than 20 years, and said he doesn’t want the “character” of the road changed by a paved pathway. According to a preliminary plan prepared by Portland’s Mitchell and Associates Landscape Architects, construction of the pathway would require the removal of 15 trees. 

“The way Shore Road is now, it’s canopied by vegetation, it’s gorgeous,” Dunham said. “[The pathway] would mean trees being cut and destroyed. It’s changing the character of the road.”

Dunham and members of the “Shore Road Preservation Committee” – a group described by their Biddeford-based public relations agent Mark Robinson as a “loose association of folks” aligned against the pathway – are also skeptical about the accuracy of the $883,000 estimate to build the path. Dunham said the town may have to obtain construction easements from property owners on Shore Road – an expensive and time consuming task – before construction can even begin. 

“They can only get at one side of the path, otherwise they’re trespassing,” he said. “I just don’t understand how they can do it.”

For fundraising efforts to begin, Strunk said members of S.A.F.E. needed “a nod of approval” from the town council. Town Planner Maureen O’Meara said Town Manager Michael McGovern was expected to present the council with “a variety of options” for the pathway proposal at their July meeting. The options could range from voting the proposal down to accepting the report and allocating funding for the project, she said. 

The town council isn’t the only governing body that would have to approve of the project; as proposed, a portion of the pathway is slated to meander through the Robinson Woods Preserve. The Cape Elizabeth Land Trust has not favored or opposed the project, although in February a letter was sent to the Shore Road Pathway Study Committee expressing concerns about the potential impact the pathway could have on the preserve. 

“While we have been told that the impact to trees on the preserve will be minimal, we are unclear on mitigation to soil erosion, damage to plant communities, wetlands and wildlife,” the letter reads. 

According to Mitchell and Associates spokesman John Mitchell, keeping the pathway along the shoulder of Shore Road bordering the Robinson Woods property could considerably increase the cost of the project. 

“A significant amount of trees would have to be removed and we would have to excavate into the slope,” Mitchell said in March. “The emphasis of [the committee’s response to CELT] should be the visual impact on the front of the [Robinson Woods] property.”

The committee responded to the CELT letter, but the organization has yet to approve or decline the project as it relates to Robinson Woods. 

    Staff Writer Nate Jones may be reached at 282-4337 ext. 233.