City, SMCC promise solutions to traffic snarl

SOUTH PORTLAND — In 2002, New York developer John Cacoulidis proposed building twin 640-foot towers on land he owns in South Portland behind Bug Light Park and connecting them to Portland by a cable car that would run across the harbor.

A decade later, traffic congestion on Broadway between Cottage Road and the Southern Maine Community College campus has become so bad that one local resident at an Oct. 18 meeting called to discuss the matter actually proposed reaching out to Cacoulidis to revive the scheme.

The motion was a joke, but the daily flow of cars to and from SMCC is no laughing matter to residents of South Portland’s Willard and Ferry Village neighborhoods, about 65 of whom turned out to the meeting, filling the dining hall of the college’s culinary arts building.

The city has partnered with the Portland Area Comprehensive Regional Transportation System (PACTS) to draft at $12,000 Transportation Demand Management Plan aimed at cutting commuter traffic to SMCC. That study is due next spring. In the meantime, college President Ron Cantor has promised to launch a immediate public awareness campaign to slow speeds and reduce incidents of districted driving.

“It’s is a racetrack to a college degree,” said Broadway resident Pam Thomas of her road. “We’re all for the college, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve all had to adjust our schedules to accommodate the students.”

“My wife has almost been hit when crossing Broadway with a stroller several times,” said Preble Street resident Charlie Baldwin. “Traffic on Broadway has pretty much ruined that side of the neighborhood for us. We can’t cross it and get to the Green Belt [Trail] without risking our lives.”

“We’re all scared,” Surfsite Road resident Katie Harrison told city and college officials on hand for the listening session. “We have elderly and toddlers on our street. But I’m also scared for the students. I’d hate to have you have to call a student’s parents and say, ‘By the way, your student was just killed in a traffic accident.’

“Let’s not wait until that happens,” said Harrison.

Although complaints of 10-minute waits to get onto Broadway from area driveways and side streets may sound like hyperbole, City Planner Tex Haeuser acknowledged the problem is real. A December 2009 traffic study conducted by Sebago Technics showed a 6-10 percent spike since 2003 in traffic at the Broadway intersection with Sawyer Street, depending on the time of day. At that time, at least 832 vehicles, and as many as 1,127, passed the site every hour between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.

“It’s true that, without a traffic light to break up traffic flow, it can be difficult to get onto Broadway in that area,” said Haeuser.

However, a traffic light is not in the offing. While traffic flow on the east end of Broadway can exceed 245 percent of the volume needed to trigger signal installation based on state criteria, Sebago found side street traffic volume got no closer than 49 percent of what’s needed warrant a new traffic light.

“This is not a local decision,” Sebago’s vice president of transportation services, Stephen Sawyer, told frustrated homeowners.

“The city of South Portland cannot decide at the City Council to put a signal in,” he said. “You have to get it approved by the state traffic engineer and the state traffic engineer will not sign off on a signal at that location with the volumes you have. It’s pure and simple.”

In fact, Sawyer said, traffic flow on the side streets actually dropped between studies conducted in 2003 and 2009, even as enrollment at SMCC nearly tripled. But that explanation did not fly with Willard resident Rob Sellin.

“My observation is that decreased traffic on Sawyer Street obviously is because of increased traffic on Broadway,” he said. “People are going up to Mussey and High streets and any which way to avoid that intersection.

“So, to use those numbers to say, ‘We can’t out a light there,’ is bogus,” said Sellin.

“Don’t just flat-out take it off the table,” said another local resident, Natalie West.

Still, Sawyer insisted there was virtually no chance of a light to calm traffic. Instead, he said, a more likely long-term solution might be installation of a rotary. Other ideas bandied about, at least more seriously than the Cacoulidis cable car, included a water taxi to the SMCC dock and construction of satellite parking lots in Portland, with direct shuttle bus service to campus.

Signs and increased enforcement were proposed as short-term solutions, although Police Chief Ed Googins said his department does not have sufficient manpower to dedicate an officer to campus-area traffic control.

Cantor said he plans to take additional unilateral steps to help ease traffic congestion. In many ways, he said, the school is a victim of its own success. Enrollment has grown from 3,505 in the fall of 2003 to 7,565 now. For the most recent year, he said, 5,600 student were taking at least one class at the South Portland campus. The new Brunswick campus will absorb some of that, he said, but some of the problem may be resolved simply by shuffling class times, from the 8 a.m. start that conflicts with area businesses and public schools to as early as 7 a.m.

 “We believe that even a 15- or 20-minute change in scheduling from the peak hours, when people are also commuting to work and area schools can make a big difference,” said Cantor.

The school does offer students free transportation on city buses, a $87,000 annual cost paid for out of student parking fees. The primary purpose is to help clear congestion at campus parking lots, but the program does have an ancillary benefit of taking about 220 cars per day off Broadway. The program is showing increased usage, up 13.4 percent to 90,894 bus trips for the 2011-2012 school year.

The problem, said Cantor, is that his hands are tied in many ways that prevent him from undertaking capital projects that might alleviate commuter congestion on campus.

“The reality is that we cannot raise tuition, our students can't afford it, while the state is giving us $1 million less than it did in 2006,” said Cantor.

However, Cantor noted that enrollment at SMCC has leveled off, from 14 percent annual spike to 4 percent last year and just 1 percent for this semester.

“The good news is that we are not going to see the problem continue to get worse, although it is obviously still a problem and we want to do everything we can,” he said.

PACTS planner Carl Eppich said the upcoming study, to include an advisory committee set to be formed in the coming weeks, will look at ways to reduce “single-occupancy vehicles.” Of particular concern, he said, is how to encourage students to favor the city’s bus service over the admittedly more convenient and timely option of driving one's own car.

The demand study, for which South Portland will contribute $2,400, will be a “three-pronged approach,” said Eppich, to include committee review of available options, an in-depth, time-demand study of public transit schedules and formation of a marketing campaign.

Whatever the result, many area residents feel the issue is rapidly approaching a point of no return.

“We need to reduce the amount of traffic coming to this campus,” said Scott Thomas. “It’s an unsustainable situation right now and somebody’s going to get really hurt.”