The state will install interim safety measures next week at the intersection where two truckers died in Gorham.

But the police chief still wants a traffic light.

Rep. Chris Barstow, D-Gorham, said Wednesday the Maine Department of Transportation would install blinking red lights next week on new, larger stop signs on Libby Avenue where it intersects with Main Street. A collision there Feb. 18 between a Maietta Construction dump truck and a R.W. Herrick trash hauler claimed the lives of both drivers.

Police Chief Ron Shepard said the safety improvements are a step in the right direction.

“I think the flashing red lights would certainly help, but I do feel our ultimate goal is to get a traffic light there so traffic itself could move easier coming out of Libby Avenue,” Shepard said.

Theresa Savoy, Legislative liaison for the Maine Department of Transportation, said Wednesday that the department anticipated oversized stop signs and 36-inch stop ahead signs would be installed by the middle of next week on each approach on Libby Avenue. The blinking red lights are solar-powered and will be installed on the replacement stop signs.

Savoy said the department’s traffic engineers viewed the intersection last week. Savoy said delivery of the blinking lights had been expected to take four weeks. “They’ve expedited that,” she said.

Barstow said the blinking red lights are being sent by air freight from Germany.

The town asked the transportation department in December for a study to determine whether a traffic light is needed at the intersection. The state has agreed to reassess the intersection beginning this spring after determining two years ago that a traffic light wasn’t warranted.

The state formula for determining need for a traffic light includes traffic counts as well as accidents.

Between January of 2004 and December 2006, there were eight accidents at Libby Avenue and Main Street, according to state figures.

“This is considered a high crash location,” Steve Landry, a state traffic engineer, said last week.

Landry estimated cost of a traffic light at that intersection as between $80,000 and $100,000. If the state finds one is needed there, Landry said, funding likely wouldn’t be available until October next year. But Barstow said he believed money for a traffic light could be covered by costs of the road reconstruction now under way on Libby Avenue.

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