By Nate Jones
Staff Writer
    Despite the impending snowstorm earlier this week, dozens of interested citizens from all over the greater Portland area made their way by bicycle, public transit or on foot to the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee’s (PACTS) public hearing. The purpose of the hearing was to allow residents to address the PACTS committee with questions or concerns they had about any of the transportation improvement projects for which PACTS intends to apply for federal funding in 2009.
Pacts offered a list of eight projects totaling $252 million with the intention of whittling the list to one or two projects to concentrate their lobbying efforts on. The list included a new turnpike interchange in northern Saco and the second phase of the Gorham Bypass.  Both projects could greatly affect traffic to and from Gorham, Buxton and surrounging communitie. However neither project is expected to make the cut, officials said.
The PACTS organization is a subsidiary of the Greater Portland Council of Government, (GPCOG), focusing on improving transportation in the greater Portland area, Scarborough Town Manager Ronald Owens said. John Duncan, PACTS director said the organization plays a necessary role in planning and allocating federal funds for projects in the Portland region. Duncan said the PACTS policy committee will allocate $8 million in federal funds this year, 40 percent of which is dedicated to public transportation.
“Some days it feels like a lot of money, most days it feels like a small amount,” Duncan said.
According to a PACTS press release the proposed cost for the northern Saco interchange is $17 million, which is less than half the predicted $35 million for phase two of the Gorham bypass.
Saco City Administrator Richard Michaud said discussion for the northern Saco interchange began three years ago in collaboration with development plans for the North Park development in Northern Saco. The interchange would allow direct access to the turnpike for citizens in Old Orchard Beach and other surrounding towns Michaud said.
“We didn’t want to widen Route One,” Owens said. “It just would create more of a barrier between the two sides of Oak Hill.”
Owens said the new interchange would relieve some of the traffic on Route One in Scarborough, as there is currently no other effective way to travel from Saco to the Portland area.
“Commuters aren’t getting the benefit of their toll by taking the turnpike,” Owens said, pointing out Route One’s more direct, toll free route through Scarborough. “We would certainly support any efforts connected to the [interchange] project.”
Prior to the meeting, Duncan said the proposal for the Saco interchange would most likely not be submitted for funding by the state.
“The chances are almost zero,” he said. “The project hasn’t gone through as much of the planning and approval processes as the other projects.”
Michaud said he hadn’t necessarily expected the project to receive much attention at Tuesday’s meeting, as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is still looking into alternatives.
“The EPA needs to investigate any other methods that would be better before they approve the plan,” he said.
Owens said he didn’t expect the Gorham bypass project, which is currently ranked third in the PACTS priority list, to receive funding either, although it has been a part of the town’s planning for Running Hill Road and the surrounding area. The town had previously considered construction of a turnpike connector in the Dunstan area, Owens said. That project was ruled out once Scarborough discovered there wasn’t enough space for the bypass, and it would not help in alleviating traffic in the already overloaded Dunstan intersection at Pine Point Road and Route One.
“The Running Hill area is going to be a big topic over the next few years,” he said. “We can’t go forward until we get all of the studies done.”
Two projects that are currently at the top of the PACTS high priority list are the rebuilding or reconstruction of the Veterans Memorial Bridge that connects South Portland and Portland over the Fore River, and the improvement of existing and purchases of new public transportation vehicles, including 10 transit busses and 14 vans, Duncan said. According to a press PACTS press release, the Veterans Bridge project is estimated to cost $30 million, and the public transit improvements is an estimated $22.5 million.
“The bridge is approaching the end of its useful life, and needs some attention,” Duncan said.
At Tuesday’s meeting Portland City Councilor Kevin Donahue endorsed the Veterans bridge project, as long as the bridge would allow pedestrian and bicycle access. Donahue also supported the concept of purchasing new buses, although he said he would like to see the project purchase more than 10, as is suggested by the PACTS proposal.
“It’s good to see so many people interested in what I do,” Duncan said at Tuesday’s meeting, which was attended by a large number of USM students and members of the League of Young Voters.
Many of the Gorham, Portland and Deering residents who spoke at the meeting were against the PACTS priority list as a whole, and encouraged PACTS to look into offering mass transit railway option in the region, such as the proposed $100 million dollar project to provide rail service from Portland to Brunswick, which ranked sixth on the PACTS priority list.
“If you build it we will ride,” Alec Maybarduk, the Maine field director for the Leage of Young Voters said at the meeting, as many members held up signs with the same message. “We reject any proposal to improve I-295.”
Maybarduk was joined by other residents in their opposition to the $30 million dollar proposal to add travel lanes to 295 between exits 5 and 7 in Portland.
“These proposals are too much for roads and too much against transit,” Gorham resident Ken O’Brian said.
Duncan said PACTS will take all comments made at the meeting into consideration when the committee meets next week to review the priority list.