The Gorham bypass, which will help commuters zip through Gorham, is slightly ahead of schedule and should be completed in 2009, coming in under the projected $13 million budget, construction officials say.

That means the Gorham Town Council would be closer to undertaking a study of village parking issues – a hot subject earlier this month when more than 15 opponents and proponents spoke at the Aug. 5 Town Council meeting about a proposed 22-lot parking lot in the village.

The Town Council voted to hold off on voting for the $80,000 project while the Capital Improvements Committee studies what some businesses believe is a parking problem.

Both Town Manager David Cole and Councilor Matt Robinson said Monday that the parking issue can not be adequately addressed until the bypass is complete and more is known on how it will affect traffic patterns downtown.

“We need to remember here that the Gorham bypass is a project that is intended to decongest Gorham Village,” Cole said. “It might be premature to try and address parking in the downtown until we first understand how traffic patterns change once the bypass is completed.”

That could be sooner rather than later, said Larry Cusler, who is heading up the project for Shaw Brothers Construction.

Flaggy Meadow Road is scheduled to open on Sept. 2 and “that is still on schedule,” Cusler said.

So far, Shaw Brothers has finished the Route 202 portion of the bypass and built roundabouts there and on Route 25, Cusler said. The construction crew recently began working on the route 114 portion of the bypass, and expects that to be open by mid-September, Cusler said.

“We’re making good progress,” he said.

Work continues on the bypass between Route 25 and Route 202, which has a completion deadline of June 2009. Cusler said that could be finished by the spring.

The bypass is a 3.4-mile stretch of road that will link South Street (Route 114) with Ossippee Trail (Route 25) west of Gorham.

It will have two, 12-foot travel lanes and will be a fenced, limited access highway. The bypass will be accessed only at intersections on routes 114, 202 and 25. A Flaggy Meadow Road bridge will carry traffic over the bypass.

“Weather permitting, we could have this all done a few months before the June deadline,” said Dan Shaw, co-owner of Shaw Brothers Construction. “Optimistically, we would like to have it done by Christmas.”

Completion allows the town to conduct a better study of traffic and parking downtown, Robinson said.

“I think the bypass is going to eliminate a lot of the truck traffic and it will eliminate some of the car traffic,” he said. “To change something today isn’t in the best interest of anyone and we should wait to see what the bypass does.”

Carson Lynch, owner of the Gorham Grind on 18 South St., said he agrees with both Robinson and Cole.

“That makes perfect sense,” he said. “I’m supportive of the bypass and I know things could definitely change when it is completed.”

Not everyone agrees with that assessment, however.

“If I were any of the businesses directly in the village, I would be pushing for the new parking lot,” said Doug Carter, owner of Carter’s Auto Service on 2 Railroad Ave. “I don’t think they’re related issues. The bypass only takes care of 10 percent of the traffic and that’s not going to change a lot in the downtown.”