Driving Payne: Public hearing on changes to the Dunstan Corner intersection set for Oct. 18.

SCARBOROUGH — With $2.35 million in town-funded construction complete at the corner of Route 1 and Haigis Parkway, attention in Scarborough is now turning to an even more massive project in Dunstan Corner.

The project, pegged at $3.35 million, calls for rebuilding the intersection of Route 1 with Pine Point and Broadturn roads, along with construction of a new access road linking Route 1 to Payne Road, to be located on the opposite side of Dunstan School Restaurant from the current intersection. The work is meant to ease traffic congestion on Payne Road by pushing motorists to Haigis Parkway instead.

The final design for the project will be unveiled at a public hearing set for Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 6 p.m., at Town Hall.

The Maine Department of Transportation and the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System (PACTS) – a 16-municipality council – will cover the bulk of the cost, $2.5 million. Scarborough taxpayers will pick up the remaining $830,000. Agreements leave the town on the hook for any cost overruns, which is part of reason the town is pushing to have the project done by 2014.

The new access road will require some taking by eminent domain, although Department of Transportation project manager Ernie Martin declined to say on Friday how much land is needed.

“We’re talking commercial property, so that adds a little more process to it,” he said. “Obviously, it’s pretty limited as to what the changes are going to be there. We can’t just pick up the restaurant and move it.

“In the right-of-way process of this magnitude, they’ve given us six months to work through everything,” said Martin, adding that the process of negotiating land buys will not begin until after the state has digested public comments from the Oct. 18 meeting.

In whatever form the access road takes, the work is meant to ease congestion and improve safety while also preserving the rural character at the south end of Payne Road.

As Scarborough has grown in recent years, many commuters have taken to using Payne Road as a cut-through from Route 1 to the Maine Mall area. But, Town Manager Tom Hall said, the road was never designed to handle the volume of traffic it sees today. Meanwhile, traffic queued up at stoplights at the Route 1 intersection with Payne Road tends to back up into the Pine Point and Broadturn intersection, and visa versa.

"The only solution,” said Hall, “is to stretch out the distance between those intersections."

The change also give the town a chance to redesign both the new and old Route 1 intersections with Payne Road, using islands and other methods so that it becomes, in Hall’s words, “uncomfortable” to make the turn.

“Really, the hope is that by discouraging people from turning there, they’ll instead choose to go a mile and a half up the road, and use Haigis Parkway, which actually is meant to be a connector to that more urban area,” Hall said.

Town Planner Dan Bacon said work to the Haigis intersection was done first this season, to make it ready to receive the new traffic.

“What we hope is that we’ll be able to divert about 20 percent of the traffic currently using Payne Road onto Haigis Parkway,” he said.

Jack Flaherty, owner of the eponymous family farmstand at 116 Payne Road, said he supports the project. His concern isn’t that potential customers won’t find him, it’s that Scarborough might end up having wasted its money.

“They do need a change up there, there’s no question about that,” he said Monday. “Those two intersections on Route 1 [at Payne and Pine Point roads] are too close together and cars do get awful jammed up. What they’re planning looks all right and I don’t think it’s going to affect us that much.

“But unless they make more changes on the Haigis Parkway intersection, it’s not going to affect us at all,” said Flaherty. “They need to take out the red arrow and let cars turn right onto Route 1 like they do any other red light in the state of Maine. I’ve seen 10 to 12 cars backed up there. If it stays too congested like that, people will get disgusted and still use Payne Road to get to the main drag.”

Some have complained that too little work went into designing the Haigis/Route 1 intersection, and too much into site aesthetics. In addition to new turning lanes, traffic islands, sidewalks and lighting, work at the Haigis intersection included installation of landscaping features, such as large stone columns at each corner. 

“That’s not anything we had to do,” Hall said. “But that area really serves as a kind of gateway to our town for cars coming off the turnpike, so we thought it was important to dress it up, if you will.”

Not everyone has been a fan of the project, and not just because of the stone sentries. At a recent meeting, Town Councilor Karen D’Andrea cast the sole vote against accepting easements granted by abutting property owners for new lighting features. The vote was symbolic, she said, based on her opposition to the project from the start.

“I just thought we couldn’t afford work to those two intersections,” he later explained. “We knew the Wentworth [school] bond was going to be coming and, next year, the fire department is asking for over a million dollars in new equipment. 

“So, I just thought the whole thing was ridiculous,” said D’Andrea. “We don’t absolutely need the work being done at those intersections. To me, those were wants, not needs.”