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With bypass road idea 'done,' focus shifts to second bridge

Skowhegan officials told funding an issue

By Doug Harlow dharlow@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

SKOWHEGAN -- After years of public hearings, impact studies and committee meetings, the plan for a bypass road around downtown Skowhegan has been scrapped.

Plans however, for a second bridge over the Kennebec River -- discussed in Skowhegan since at least 1961 -- are back on the front burner.

That was the news delivered to selectmen this week by Marty Rooney at the state Department of Transportation.

"The bypass is done," Skowhegan Town Manager John Doucette Jr. said. "There will not be a bypass."

The decision came down to a lack of available funding at the state level and regulatory changes at the federal level, Rooney said.

"Statewide today, in terms of highway reconstruction, the heavy work, we're doing roughly a third of the work that we were doing when this study began," Rooney told selectmen. "We've determined that in the projected future, we are not going to have the resources to complete this project as envisioned."

Rooney said he also has been in contact with the town of Skowhegan and residents who generally oppose a bypass road that would slice through neighborhoods, taking land and homes with it.

"Rather than a grandiose bypass, what the town would really like is another bridge, most likely in the downtown area for safety and feasibility," Rooney said.

Studies for a proposed second bridge over the river, including a corresponding 11-mile bypass route, have been underway since 1999. Talks about a second bridge without the bypass road are decades old and resurfaced after a big flood in 1987.

The most recent plans would place a new bridge from U.S. Route 201, the Waterville Road, across the river near the Eddy to U.S. Route 2, the Canaan Road, where the bypass would have commenced.

Supporters of the plan to move traffic out of downtown with a second bridge said Skowhegan could become a destination point for shoppers and for visitors to a proposed whitewater-kayaking park. Loud logging trucks passing through the shopping district and other through-traffic discourages foot traffic, they have said.

In a non-binding referendum in Skowhegan in 2004, voters supported the construction of a second bridge by a 2-1 margin, but opposed the bypass idea in a 754 to 544 vote.

Rooney said he wants feedback, and specifics, but Doucette and others said all of that information has been compiled over the years in the form of various impact studies, and didn't see the point of starting all over again.

Doucette said it would be like reinventing the wheel.

"There's been a lot of feasibility studies of where the bridge was going to go in the past," Doucette said. "You have a lot of that information already, and now you're asking us to say where we want to put it. You have more information than any of us on that."

Rooney acknowledged that while there have been prior studies done, a fresh "feasibility analysis" would be needed to update project information and the department would rely on the town of Skowhegan to provide that update.

Joy Mase, chairman of the Skowhegan Board of Selectmen, said the town will "reassemble" a committee to provide the state with the information and opinions it needs to move forward with second bridge plan.

"I'd like everything we do to be as current as possible," Mase said. "I don't see any harm in assembling a committee."

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534

dharlow@centralmaine.com