The Cape Elizabeth Planning Board is expected to give final approval to a $1.4 million upgrade of the town’s transfer station, making it safer and more efficient, at its meeting this week.

The Planning Board was set to meet on Tuesday, after the Current’s deadline. Voters approved the changes to the transfer station during a local referendum this past June and since then, the board has met several times on the proposal, including taking a site walk.

Cape’s Solid Waste and Recycling Long Term Planning Committee made recommendations for changes at the transfer station following an accident in November 2014 that killed former the public works director, Herbert Dennison

The major changes to the transfer station will include installing drive-forward-only lanes, constructing a bypass lane to allow more convenient access to services such as the Swap Shop and Bottle Shed, and repurposing the existing compactor building.

The goal for the transfer station upgrades, the committee said in a lengthy report submitted to the council nearly two years ago, is to “provide substantial safety and service improvements over the next 25 to 30 years.”

In a memo provided to the Planning Board before its Oct. 18 meeting, Town Planner Maureen O’Meara said, “The proposed trash disposal lanes are intended to eliminate the practice of parking and walking trash to the compactor and will promote pedestrian safety.”

The memo also said that the new trash compactors planned for installation at the transfer station “have been sized to accommodate existing solid waste tonnage.”

Even if the Planning Board gives final approval to the project this week, the town can’t move forward until it receives several required permits from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, O’Meara said in the memo.

– Kate Irish Collins

Upgrades at the transfer station in Cape Elizabeth are expected to elminate the practice of people parking and walking their trash to the compactor.