Cars pass through the intersection of State and Spring streets in Portland on Friday. The intersection is one of a number of intersections along State Street and High Street that have been noted as “high-crash” areas by the city. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

A proposal to convert State and High streets to two-way traffic is moving forward – but still has a ways to go – after being endorsed by the Portland City Council’s Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

The committee voted at its Wednesday meeting to endorse the plan and bring it before the rest of the City Council. The proposal is not on the agenda for the council’s next meeting on Monday, but Jeremiah Bartlett, a transportation system engineer with the city’s Department of Public Works, has previously indicated that his team is aiming to present the plan to the entire council in October.

Bartlett said approval from the council “really just initiates a process with the (Maine) DOT.”

Public works officials are hoping to tie the proposed change, which has been in various stages of consideration for more than a decade, to an upcoming Maine DOT project to replace the traffic signals on both streets. That project and its funding have already been approved, but Portland could supplement roughly $1.5 million to $1.75 million to expand its scope, city officials said at a public meeting last week.

Wednesday night, Bartlett said the state had more or less paused progress on its signal project to await word from the city, but requires its formal endorsement before Maine DOT would be willing to discuss plans to share the work and cost.

“We’re much closer to the beginning of this than we are the end,” Bartlett told the committee.

A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Transportation did not answer questions by 8 p.m. Wednesday about what the state is looking for in any potential partnership with the city.

Committee Chair Regina Phillips, who represents the city’s third district, said she was “more than willing to support” moving discussions to the entire council, but she noted that no plans have been finalized yet. “Just because it goes to council doesn’t mean the plans that you brought to us are a done deal,” Phillips said.

Councilor Anna Bullett said converting the roads to carry two-way traffic would likely improve evacuation routes and redundancy of available roadways.

Cars move through the intersection of High Street and York Street in Portland on Friday. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

“I think that from a safety standpoint for our community, we can’t not do this,” said Bullett, who represents the fourth district. “I just really think that the pedestrian safety needs to be paramount as we move forward.”

Both councilors voted to endorse the plan. The committee’s third member, Councilor Victoria Pelletier – who represents Portland’s second district – was not present for the vote.

Bullett said she was “a little concerned” that the current proposal does not include details on bicycle lanes. Bartlett said those plans are still in the works and would require additional feedback from the community.

He said the city aims to place bike lanes near the sidewalks and outside the curb lines to keep cyclists away from vehicle traffic. Those lanes could cost between $2 million and $3 million, Bartlett said, though he called that a conservative estimate.

Members of the public who attended Wednesday evening’s virtual meeting were generally supportive of the plan, even though some acknowledged it was still incomplete.

Markos Miller, who lives on Atlantic Street, said the conversion project has had support from the local community for years, “so it’s great that these projects are coming back.”

“I know that there’s some concern about bicycle facilities,” Miller said. “But I think we take victories when we can. … Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Paul Drinan, active transportation director for the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, said his organization supports the project generally, but argued that it should include off-street cycling paths, which he called “the gold standard.”

Drinan also proposed sacrificing one road of parallel parking for a dedicated public transit lane.

But Lynne Beasley, who has lived in Cape Elizabeth for about 15 years, said she regularly uses State and High streets to travel through town to her church on Congress Street and to Interstate 295, and she worries about the impact to cross-city traffic.

Reached by phone before the meeting, Beasley said she worried about how cars attempting to parallel park might impact traffic flow with only one lane.

“Getting in and getting out of a parking space is going to stop traffic,” Beasley said. “I consider those two roads to be the roads that you need to go into Portland and out of Portland, and I don’t see any way of going around that.”

Beasley said she understands why local residents would favor a potential decrease in through-traffic, but argued that those roads have been busy for years, and that people knew what they were signing up for when they moved in.

“Don’t rent or buy on the main street that’s on the travel corridor” in hopes of avoiding traffic, Beasley said. “That’s not fair. It’s a whole city that depends on that traffic going in or out.”

Beasley repeated these concerns during the public comment period, suggesting a monthlong trial period before the city commits to breaking any ground.