BRUNSWICK — Aside from project manager Ernie Martin’s suggestion that the Maine Department of Transportation “throw a bomb into that intersection and just start over,” (which drew an enthusiastic round of applause) Brunswick and DOT officials aren’t sure how to best manage traffic and safety at the intersection of Stanwood, Mill and Pleasant Streets.
At a meeting Wednesday, the department of transportation presented two options for safety improvements for drivers turning left onto Pleasant Street from Stanwood Street, both of which were met with such stringent opposition that Martin said he and officials would have to “think some more,” and “see if there’s something else we can come up with.”
The issue has been talked to death, he said, and Town Manager John Eldridge said that “short of a tunnel under Brunswick or a bridge over it,” there is no easy answer.
The first option presented Wednesday night was to rebuild the center island, making more room for room for larger vehicles, and extend the barrier going west toward the interstate so that drivers would have to wait longer before merging into the right-hand lane, where most are trying to turn onto River Road. The second option, should the first one fail, would eliminate the left-hand turn from Stanwood entirely.
The town council chambers were packed, and residents made it clear that under no circumstances was removing the left turn an option in their eyes.
The first option still would not help the people who needed to turn left on River Road, they agreed, as it relied too much on what Martin called “driver behavior,” and since the traffic light and yield sign were removed from Mill Street traffic merging onto Pleasant Street, the traffic comes in too quickly.
What everyone could agree on was that something needs to be done.
According to DOT official Al Godfrey, nearly 30,000 vehicles drive down Pleasant Street every day, and about 5,000 drive down Stanwood. The intersection is not considered a high crash zone, he said, but accidents are on the rise — primarily sideswipes and fender benders resulting from drivers trying to change lanes too quickly. To complicate matters, Mill and Stanwood streets are poorly aligned with one another, making crossing difficult.
This is not the first time improvements have been attempted.
In 2018, the department installed a temporary stoplight at Mill and Pleasant Street to stop Mill Street traffic at the intersection that previously had yielded to traffic turning onto Pleasant Street from Stanwood Street. The light was removed in June to better move U.S. Route 1 southbound traffic, as it was creating “horrendous backups,” Godfrey said.
Town officials then cut back the center island to try to accommodate larger vehicles and installed flexible delineators to more clearly designate between the lanes, and “while that’s helpful, a more permanent solution is needed out there,” Godfrey said.
Many residents spoke in favor of reinstalling the stoplight and questioned its removal, though Eldridge said that for everyone who liked the light there was another person who said that “whoever put that light up should be fired.”
Roundabouts were another popular solution, though Martin said there wasn’t enough space in that area for what would need to be a two-lane roundabout, and the DOT lacked the funding.
Bruce Freeman said traffic coming off Mill Street needs to be slowed down so that turning off Stanwood is less dangerous. He proposed yield signs with flashing lights on Mill Street that were linked to the green light on Stanwood, warning people that a merge was upcoming.
“It would help us getting home,” Freeman said.
The idea was widely supported throughout the evening and Godfrey and Martin both said they would “take a serious look at the signage” and look at managing traffic through an electronic standpoint.
“You’ve given us a lot of food for thought,” Godfrey said, and they will go back to the drawing board. Neither of the options presented Wednesday evening is officially off the table, he said after the meeting, but they’re going to take another look at the problem, taking what traffic engineer Steve Landry called a “more holistic approach.”
“It’s a difficult problem to solve, but the DOT and the town are committed to fixing it,” Eldridge said.
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