Last week, the Portland City Council voted to delay a final vote on a project to alter the Franklin Street interchange with Interstate 295, at an estimated cost to city residents of more than $4 million (Jan. 23).

This delay provides an important opportunity to initiate a public discussion of how this very expensive project can be part of a resiliency strategy to protect Portland’s road network and economic vitality as coastal flooding increases.

For several years, Portland’s Sustainability Office has taken a nationally recognized leadership role in coordinating research and promoting public understanding of where and how Portland will be affected as the level of the ocean continues to rise. A useful site for understanding how sea-level rise relates to the interchange project is seeing.climatecentral.org.

If one types “Portland Maine” into the box at the top right hand corner of the screen, slides the bar at the bottom of the map to show a temperature rise of 1 degree Celsius, or 7 feet in sea level, and then zooms in, one can see that Marginal Way and the Franklin Street interchange will be in the heart of future major flooding problems in the Back Cove area. The “Sinking Cities” series on PBS shows that many coastal cities have moved beyond discussion to actual construction.

If this interchange project does not become the first step in constructing sea-level rise protection for Portland, it would be comforting to know that sea-level rise in this part of the city has been taken into account in the project’s design, and that this project will not make it more difficult or costly to take required future protective steps, which may include elevating portions of Marginal Way or the interchange.

Peter Ryner

Windham

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