TONIGHT at 6pm Maine Turnpike Authority is rolling out their widening project

[Myles G. Smith]

Folks, if anyone lives in Riverton and can make it, please attend the community meeting tonight from 6-8pm at the Talbot School. I just learned of it. The MTA plans to widen the turnpike through Portland and up to Falmouth. It would be good to learn all that we can, most importantly, how much it would cost, what benefits would it offer, and on what basis they claim it to be necessary. 

Please call me if you’re going and want to chat.

Myles 

202-779-6179

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[Aaron L. Rosenblum]

Myles,

I live in Riverton, very close to 95. I half-forgot about this meeting but was originally planning to attend and still might. But where are you seeing that this is an announcement of widening? There's nothing in the MTA info about this meeting or this project that suggests widening. 

The meeting is listed as being about work on the bridges (an itemized list at the link doesn't say anything specifically about widening), and mostly about noise reduction/management options. I care deeply about noise pollution (before moving here I was appointed to and served on the Community Noise Forum of the Louisville Regional Airport Authority, for instance), and believe this issue deserves significant attention and community input. So...I hope it's about that. 

My partner attended the last meeting at Talbot about these bridge repairs, maybe six months ago, and there was no mention of widening then. 

Aaron

You are receiving this email because you attended a previous Maine Turnpike Authority public meeting or requested project updates.

Portland Area Mainline Safety Program Improving safety and reliability along I‑95 in the Portland area. Date: May 8, 2026 UPCOMING ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITY: Join the Maine Turnpike Authority (MTA) for a neighborhood workshop on the Forest Avenue Bridge replacement and potential noise walls in the Riverton Park and the Castine and Euclid Avenue neighborhoods. At the Noise Study Neighborhood Workshop you'll have the opportunity to: Learn about safety improvements and potential noise wall considerations Ask questions and talk directly with the project team Provide feedback on potential design options Additional opportunities to provide input will be available, but we encourage you to attend in person.

Noise Study Neighborhood Workshop May 14, 2026 | 6-8 p.m. Gerald E. Talbot Community School 1600 Forest Ave, Portland ME 04103 VISIT THE PROJECT WEBSITE CONTACT US: Contact the project team with questions, comments, or to request language assistance, ADA services, or other accommodations. SUBMIT A COMMENT OR QUESTION

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[Joey Brunelle]

I attended this meeting tonight with Aaron and Myles. Short version is, it was an elaborate "neighborhood meeting" to sell the neighbors on about 2 miles of new sound barriers, the catch being that they will only install the sound barriers if they add a third lane in both directions from exits 48-53 (past the Falmouth Spur). No widening, no sound barriers - or so they said. Easily 95% of the presentation was focused around sound barriers, sound proofing, sound studies, sound sound sound... and oh yeah btw there's this third lane component to this project too. (Side note: when asked about "sound tunneling effects" due to the new sound barriers, they said that if there was such an effect, that it would "only affect businesses, which is fine because nobody lives there.")

They said they would be doing bridge work on this section regardless (that was "non-negotiable" because the bridges need to be repaired), and that the bridge work would naturally result in a slightly wider road footprint in a few areas, which would make it "look weird" if the third lanes were not added into those spaced. However they said that the widening was "optional" but that if the widening didn't happen, they "couldn't" add the sound barriers because of "federal standards." (I thought that was a curious assertion, to say the least.)

There were exactly 9 neighborhood residents in attendance, plus Myles and I, and approximately 15 MDOT and MTA staffers. 

For anyone who is interested, I have photos/copies of their materials/posters/presentation.

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[Scsmedia]

when asked about "sound tunneling effects" due to the new sound barriers, they said that if there was such an effect, that it would "only affect businesses, which is fine because nobody lives there."

How would affect only one side of the road.  That should have been challenged as bullshit.

would naturally result in a slightly wider road footprint in a few areas, which would make it "look weird" if the third lanes were not added into those spaced.

Roads are widened at bridges all of the time.  It never looks weird.

Meeting website  https://www.maineturnpike.com/projects/construction-projects/2025-17-forest-ave-bridge-repairs

Steven Scharf

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[Zack Barowitz]

Thanks for the report, and thanks

For making it out on short notice!!!

207-838-6120

917-696-5649
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[Maya Lena]

Thank you for the update. I will share my experience with a widened highway.

I live 0.67 miles from I-95 as the crow flies. The section near me (between exits 47 and 48) was widened a few years ago. They removed trees and added 2 lanes on either side of the highway. My neighbors and I started noticing noise that we had never heard before and it took us some time to figure out what it was. 

Jet engines? One of the mills in Westbrook? Nope, it is the sound of cars driving on the highway. More pavement + faster vehicles - treeline buffer = noise pollution. In the summertime, it is often louder than the song birds that are feet from my house.

I would fully call BS on the need for more lanes in this area. There is barely any traffic. I have only been stuck on this stretch of I-95 once in 16 years of living in Maine, and there was a very bad car crash in Falmouth. I would fight this, and am happy to help.

Maya

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[Aaron L. Rosenblum]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Maya. Indeed, living about a quarter mile from the highway, I will experience no benefit from the sound walls, if constructed, and absolutely expect to experience negative effects from the tree clearing that the MTA mentioned would be part of the project, but they wouldn't really admit that more sound for folks outside the benefit zone of the sound wall was even a possibility. I also got pretty unsatisfactory answers when pointing out to one of the engineers that there's basically never traffic of any appreciable volume along the exit 48-53 stretch.

The same thing happened at the airport in Louisville while I was involved there - they cleared a huge amount of brush along the runways and acted surprised when neighbors complained that apparent noise had increased. The airport's claim was that they collected readings and the volume had not increased, but it was pretty easy to see what was happening there - the overall sound level likely didn't increase, as the loudest sounds from the airport are low-end sounds, which weren't obstructed by the brush in the first place but also aren't the most noticeable to us in our daily lives. Removing the brush made it much easier for more noticeable and annoying higher frequencies, which the brush did interrupt, to reach the neighbors, impacting their actual lives but not pushing an SPL meter's max reading any higher than it already was, because those frequencies still weren't "louder" than the low end that was already being measured. A classic gap between scientific measurement and human experience (or, why you need psychoacousticians in the planning process, not just acoustical engineers). 

After Joey left, Myles and I did get a couple of the engineers to admit that the "requirement" to add capacity in order to build a sound wall is an internal MTA policy following federal guidance, and can be changed with nothing more than the agreement of the MTA board. Their apparent fear is that if they shifted to a model without this requirement, they would be inundated with requests for sound walls, and would not have the funding to build them all. So the "requirement" is really a way of prioritizing/filtering the needs/requests, which is an understandable goal for an agency with limited resources, but the goal doesn't dictate this particular way of prioritizing! This model also means that no historical harm can be addressed without first making the harm worse. Which is...not a great model. 

Aaron 

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[Zack Barowitz]

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make the meeting and I don’t know if anyone at the meeting said “trees don’t buffer sound” but I’ve heard this often and I know from experience that it is false. The sound near my house is lower in the summer than in the winter because of the leaves. 

As for sound fence, my friend grew up near a BIG highway (the Long Island Expressway) where as kids they would blindly throw rocks and logs over the fence—and goad the little kids to throw bigger rocks. He said that there were fatal crashes in that location at that time. 

It’s all very dehumanizing. 

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[Christian MilNeil]

"However they said that the widening was "optional" but that if the widening didn't happen, they "couldn't" add the sound barriers because of "federal standards." (I thought that was a curious assertion, to say the least.)"

This sounds like absolute bullshit to me, and I'd love to hear them try to tell us why this is true. We know that widening the Turnpike is going to induce more driving, more noise, and more air pollution into the neighborhood (and air pollution isn't blocked by a noise barrier), and add a huge amount of annual operating expense and capital debt for Mainers all over the state to pay in the form of higher tolls. 

This feels like another great example for why we need the Legislature to step in and regulate the Turnpike as the monopoly it is, and force them to share their toll revenue to fund things that actually lower our transportation costs.

Christian MilNeil
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[Rauschpfeife]

Superficial impression: the usual "our hands are tied" BS. Am I wrong? 

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Best, 

Michael Smith

anacharsis.substack.com

On Thu, May 14, 2026 at 8:33 PM Joey Brunelle <joey.b...@gmail.com> wrote:

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