The Boothbay selectmen unanimously voted to place the Route 27 traffic improvement plan on the ballot in November.

On Election Day, voters will decide if they want to support the $3.3 million plan. It includes a squared-up intersection between Route 27 and Country Club Road, raised medians between the northbound and southbound lanes of Route 27 starting near the same intersection, and a redesign of the four-corner stop, which will create a single entrance to Route 27 off Back River Road and reroute Corey Lane to the new roundabout near the edge of the Boothbay Common.

Also involved are the addition of bicycle lanes and dedicated turn-lanes, and well-defined entrances to both the current Clipper Mart and Boothbay Common, and a new 40-car parking lot next to the common for community use. The town’s share of the project is $1.15 million generated from tax increment financing (TIF) program approved last year. State funding and the developer, Country Club owner Paul Coulombe, make up the remainder.  

Selectmen and a crowd of about 35 heard from Stephen S. Sawyer Jr., vice president of transportation services at Sebago, at the board’s meeting Aug. 10 at the Boothbay Region YMCA. Sebago is a South Portland-based company that specializes in civil and transportation engineering, surveying and landscape architecture. Sawyer responded to questions raised in a peer review of the plan, and carefully went over the project with a slideshow.

Sawyer explained that the goal is to “Complete the Street” by creating a walkable and bikeable corridor that is both attractive and balanced for safety and mobility. Though the state DOT database shows few crashes at the Corey Lane four-way stop, Sawyer spoke to Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett and informed the crowd that, between 2013 and 2015, there were “66 non-reportable crashes in the Corey Lane area, which means there was under $1,000 worth of property damage.”

Sawyer said these were commonly thought of as “fender bender” crashes, and that these statistics don’t even touch on the many “near misses” including pedestrians crossing to get to the monument and cars not stopping at the stop signs. With the redesign, the monument will stay in its current location and become accessible to pedestrians without having to cross any roadways.

“There is more to the story of safety that just the state database,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer also explained the redesign planned for the entrance to Country Club Road. With the recent purchase of the Clipper Mart property, current plans are to remove the gas pumps and extend the roadway into what is currently the parking lot of the market. Board Chairman Dale Harmon spoke in favor of this.

“I’ll flip my hat here, and wear my water district hat instead,” Harmon said. “Getting rid of those tanks is actually a good thing, as they are the only tanks in our watershed.”

If Boothbay votes yes on the plan, construction is scheduled to start early in 2017. It would pause sometime in June and resume after Labor Day and through December, weather permitting. It would resume again in the spring of 2018 with a target completion date of June 15, 2018. The cost estimate is based on this schedule.

A member of the audience asked what state the road would be in during the summer months when construction was paused. Sawyer assured the audience that “I promise it will not be a dusty gravelly road during the summer.”

Boothbay resident Dawn Gilbert, a member of the Joint Economic Development Committee, stood up and thanked the selectmen for their efforts.

“I commend you guys for the whole project,” Gilbert said. “This is going to be a really good thing for the community. Coming back this summer I was stuck in traffic on Corey Lane and all I could think was ‘I can’t wait for the roundabout.’”

The selectmen voted unanimously to put the question on the ballot, with the exact language to be determined at a later date by the town attorney.