The Ellsworth Triangle Bypass Proposals Repeatedly Resurface As Solution to Traffic Tangle

Summary

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In a 1970 straw poll, city voters opposed a state plan to widen High Street to four lanes, but favored the idea of building a bypass that would funnel traffic around the city.

In the ensuing decades, High Street has been widened incrementally, and, with the work done by the city and the Maine Department of Transportation last year, the city's key commercial corridor is now a four-lane road from Main Street to the Triangle.

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Extract

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The Ellsworth Triangle Bypass Proposals Repeatedly Resurface As Solution to Traffic Tangle

But there's still no bypass.

The focus of the most recent road improvements, and others still in the planning and discussion stages, has been to ease congestion and move traffic more smoothly and safely through the built-up portion of the city, using the existing roads.

The idea of a bypass resurfaces almost anytime discussion turns to traffic delays in the city. Some surveys have indicated that more residents favor the idea than not. But during the past 35 years, no plan to route traffic around the city has made it to the front burner of local or regional transportation planning. Instead, the city and state have invested in smaller improvements, such as the recent widening of High Street.

Now the city is poised to reconfigur...

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