PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Increased outreach, signage and public notices have helped divert large truck traffic from Presque Isle’s Academy Street to the $16.8 million truck bypass opened in 2019.
After repeated complaints from residents, the city formed a working group last year to evaluate and improve the situation.
The working group — Presque Isle City Manager Martin Puckett, Robert Watson from Maine Department of Transportation, a representative of Presque Isle Public Works, Presque Isle Police Chief Laurie Kelly and a trooper from the Maine State Police — said awareness of the 1.7 miles of bypass between the Fort Fairfield Road and Conant Road was critical to change.
Initially, the group contacted local media sources as well as local farms and agricultural workers, trucking companies and the Professional Logging Contractors, to encourage using the truck bypass instead of going through downtown.
Additionally, Maine State Police checked vehicle weights to ensure heavy truck compliance through commercial vehicle enforcement, Puckett said.
“This topic has been brought to us several different times by different citizens,” Presque Isle City Council Chairman Kevin Freeman said during last week’s city council meeting. “I am happy to see some movement and improvement on this … there were concerns about trucks still operating in city streets.This will be the third, maybe fourth time we’ve talked about this in a public session and I think that we’re making some progress on this.”
Maine DOT worked with the city on truck route signage, Puckett said, adding that they kept the city involved throughout the process.
With the new signage installed in November, truck route compliance appears to be working, Maine DOT Northern Regional Manager Robert Watson said.
“We did sit down several times as a group and talked about options for signage,” Watson said. “I’m really interested to see what’s going to happen this summer … In my opinion, let’s go through a year cycle the way this is and see what happens. We can always come back and revisit it. “
City Councilor Doug Cyr said he’s heard from a few companies that had concerns about the line of sight at one of the intersections, and he asked about safety measures.
“I know that last summer, particularly looking toward Easton, when the vegetation started to grow we had a problem there,” Watson said. “So we got out and we mowed that and we sprayed that to keep the vegetation down. We did move the stop bars closer to the intersection. Our engineer looked at it and thought if you are a little bit closer to the intersection you could see better.”
There is a second, larger phase of the bypass planned, but Watson said it is still in the design phase and there is currently no construction timeline.
“It is still funded for engineering and design and that’s an ongoing process,” he said.
A pickup travels on the first section of the Presque Isle truck bypass on June 24, 2019. (Paula Brewer | The Star-Herald)
