WISCASSET

The town is looking at a master plan to encourage development on the U.S. Route 1 corridor — not necessarily to aid seasonal traffic backups.

“If implemented, it will improve mobility somewhat,” said Wiscasset Town Planner Misty Parker. “But this isn’t an alternative to a bypass. The real purpose is to encourage economic development along Route 1 from Woolwich to Wiscasset.”

But mobility continues to be a problem.

Wiscasset held a meeting Tuesday to introduce the new master plan, the goal of which is to encourage development. It also aims to reduce traffic on the corridor between Bath and Wiscasset. About a dozen people attended the meeting.

The road is a legendary bottleneck in the summer, especially where it enters the pedestrian-populated village and then crosses the Sheepscot River.

Several solutions have been attempted.

A road widening project to provide a right-turn lane at Route 27 met with opposition in 2012 because it required a lawn to be dug up. A contentious bypass plan, skirting the historic village and building a new bridge that would hopscotch across an island in Sheepscot Bay, was dealt a death blow in 2011 when the state pulled financing for the study.

Seasonally, the drive to Wiscasset is a long trip, and it seems to get longer every summer.

For visitors traveling north toward Rockland, Belfast and Bar Harbor, the only other way to their desti- nation is the interstates, which require a circuitous route. So most join the line of vehicles negotiating the 10-mile stretch of road from Bath to Wiscasset.

The four-lane road going north through Bath abruptly shrinks to two lanes in Woolwich. But since Woolwich doesn’t have a large number of roadside attractions, traffic usually continues more or less unimpeded.

At the Wiscasset town line, the flea market is popular, but there is a flashing light and a turning lane for northbound traffic.

In the master plan discussed Tuesday, the biggest bottleneck — Wiscasset village itself — wasn’t part of the discussion.

Instead, the plan focused on the part of Route 1 between the Woolwich line and Flood Street, just south of Wiscasset’s town and county infrastructure, and the downtown itself. South of that point, Route 1 boasts several shopping areas, restaurants, gas stations and roadside attractions that don’t have protected turning lanes.

One example cited in the master plan was the Shaw’s supermarket, the only grocer in town for residents and one of the last big markets on Route 1 before Belfast.

Turning into and out of the plaza has been a nightmare for traffic. The average delay for traffic owing to a turning vehicle at the Shaw’s supermarket is more than two and a half minutes — 151.7 seconds — during peak hours in the summer, according to the master plan document.

With a center turn lane, only the turning car would have to stop and wait for breaks in the traffic.

The master plan identifies several of these locations, including at the intersection of Route 144, the north and south ends of Old Bath Road, and Birch Road. There are expected to be more as new attractions are built along the highway.

Also a concern is the fact that some of those new attractions are appealing to young people, many of whom may be on bicycles.

There are no pedestrian crosswalks anywhere on the corridor, according to Parker, who says they are not currently needed.

“If we ultimately put in a light at Birch Point Road, once the traffic flow warrants it, it will make sense to do something for pedestrians,” she said. “There are quite a few residences in that area.”

She says any traffic light or pedestrian crosswalk would have to meet state traffic standards, which are high.

The master plan recommended “frontage roads” behind the business parcels and, in some cases, identifying land that could ultimately be purchased to serve that function.

Some 72 percent of Wiscasset residents responded that they are in favor of such an effort. Wiscasset may consider obtaining grants, or using tax increment financing, to fund the land purchases if the plan is approved by all parties.

The plan also considered aesthetics in terms of the existing development of the corridor, in order to target land for conservation by creating buffers of natural areas and establishing a rhythm of natural and built environments along Bath Road.

This is in keeping with the 2008 Comprehensive Plan, which recommended Route 1 not evolve into a continuous strip of development and that measures be taken to protect natural resources by concentrating development where it already exists.

On the southern end of the corridor, near Route 144, new development is springing up, much of it automotive in nature.

“You have car dealerships, gas stations, drive-through restaurants,” Parker said. “Much of the new development we’d refer to as ‘franchise’ development. They need bigger parcels.”

In the middle, there are a series of small malls, motels and other older development. Further north, closer to town, there is a mixture of residential and older small businesses on smaller parcels — diners, auto repair shops and small retail, often with houses clustered right behind them.

Parker says new development is encouraged in all regions, but that the southern end has more potential because of the existing residential development in the northern regions.

Traffic projections were worked out through 2030, and the most heavily utilized intersections were recommended for turning lanes.

The plan will be presented to the Select Board on Tuesday, Dec. 17. Once approved, it will be submitted to the town Comprehensive Plan Committee to be incorporated into the 2008 document.

No improvements are imminent. Because Route 1 is a federal highway, the state Department of Transportation would take the lead in improving the roadway.

Parker said the master plan’s timetables are two to more than five years in the future.

ghamilton@timesrecord.com