Fwd: The plan for South Gorham & North Scarborough

[Derek Pelletier]

Hi All,

Yesterday, I submitted a note to the ME Office of Policy of Innovation and the Future re: the MTAs Gorham Spur via their website. Interestingly, they passed it along to MTA and I received the attached response from Peter Mills’ email address.

D

Sent from my phone

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Mills, Peter" <PMi...@maineturnpike.com>
Date: June 9, 2022 at 6:05:04 PM EDT
To: dpe...@gmail.com
Subject: The plan for South Gorham & North Scarborough



Mr. Pelletier,

Attached is a general response to your inquiry as well as extracts from a thoughtful plan developed by PACTS to address traffic and land planning in South Gorham and North Scarborough.  It is in followup to such planning and earlier work done for a 2012 study that the Legislature authorized the Turnpike to build a Gorham Connector as one portion of a multi-part strategy to relieve congestion and improve land planning west of Portland.  Supporting studies are available for review on the Turnpike website.  

We support transit initiatives and we acknowledge that transit can be helpful to preserve highway capacity.  However, studies have concluded that the issues west of Portland need to be resolved through a three-part strategy:  transit, land-planning and a new connector.  The three must work in tandem to achieve the planning goals endorsed by the affected municipalities.

If there are alternative plans to address these issues, it would be a public service to present them for review.

Peter Mills

Maine Turnpike 

858 6400 cell

 Email: dpe...@gmail.com

Name: Derek Pelletier
Town/city: Portland
Message:
Dear Office of Policy Innovation and the Future:
I've been happy to follow the progress of the Climate Council in establishing goals and road maps for the immediate action that we need to address climate risks in Maine. It includes both actions to increase resiliency to respond to changing climate as well as the very necessary actions to curb our emissions and prevent the worst of climate changes impacts. I have been very disappointed, however, to see that all sectors of the state government are not on board with this sense of urgency. Specifically, the Maine Turnpike Authority's plan to add highway capacity in the greater Portland region by constructing a 6-mile, limited-access highway is a giant leap in the wrong direction. It further locks in our state's reliance on highly inefficient personal automobiles and will result in an increase in vehicle miles travelled (VMT) which runs counter to the Maine Won't Wait climate plan. Construction of this highway sends a signal that Maine doesn't actually take its climate obligations
seriously.
Wed Jun 8 15:30:36 2022

[Damon Yakovleff]

Thanks for sharing this, Derek. Thinking about this from our perspective here in Portland, I am very concerned about the effect this new highway will have on sprawl in our drinking water supply watersheds. Two major drinking water supply watersheds, the Saco River and Sebago lake, will be significantly impacted by increased development as a result of this highway construction. While it's good that they are looking at effects in Gorham and Scarborough, I believe much more needs to be done to study the impacts (financial and otherwise) on degradation of our drinking water supply after the connector is completed. If this were properly considered, it may appear to be a far less attractive option.

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[George Rheault]

Bicycle Coalition stepping up...

Gorham Connector Project Will Not Reduce Traffic or Help Meet Our Climate Goals | Bicycle Coalition of Maine (bikemaine.org)

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