Improvements are being planned for a portion of Routes 302, 35 and 115 in North Windham and a public open house on Wednesday, June 18 at Windham Town Hall will provide an update for plans of the area.
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| A Maine Department of Transportation map shows improvements planned for a portion of Routes 302, 35, and 115 in North Windham. A public open house to discuss this project hosted by MDOT will be held on Wednesday, June 18 at Windham Town Hall. COURTESY PHOTO |
The June meeting is basically an update of the North Windham Moves project, Maine Department of Transportation Senior Project Manager Ernie Martin said. An initial public hearing was held in June 2024.
The partnership between the town and the state regarding the project, Martin said, began in 2019 and it will be over a decade later when construction is completed. The two entities worked on a feasibility study in 2022 and applied for the RAISE grant the following year. The final preliminary project design report is due in January, with a final public hearing taking place in February.
The plan impact report will be completed by August 2026 with plans and a cost estimate for the project to be completed by June 2027. Construction is set to begin in October 2027, and the estimated completion date is June 2030.
According to Martin, the goals of the project which will affect 4.85 miles are manifold and are designed primarily to improve “a dangerous and inefficient U.S. highway bottleneck.”
Other specific goals include improving “safety and efficiency for motorists;” providing "more uniform accessibility to employment and retail as well as tourism and recreation;” implementing “modern design features that will improve pedestrian and vehicle flow;” meeting the “Americans with Disabilities Act and Maine Department of Transportation standards;” and creating “an efficient and modern supply chain path for goods and services throughout the region.”
The project involves redesigning about 9,000 feet of Route 302 from River Road to White’s Bridge Road in Windham and the creation of three connector routes – walkable back streets – behind the region’s commerce center to ease congestion on Route 302. This project will make improvements to Routes 35 and 115 and it will replace aging traffic signals on Route 302 with smart signals. In addition to making road improvements aimed at benefiting pedestrians and bicyclists, Martin said that this project will construct about 11,700 feet of new multi-use pathway.
Some other key project features include repaving existing roads and adding new roads, adding and upgrading sidewalks on Route 302, installing new curbs in some areas, roadway alignments to be modified, and adding median islands on Route 302.
The North Windham Moves, Regional Mobility, Local Access Transportation Planning and Feasibility Study was commissioned in 2021 as a joint venture between the Town of Windham and the Maine Department of Transportation, with the study conducted by Gorrill Palmer and North Star Planning. The study recommended transportation improvements along Route 302 in North Windham area through the phased creation of three connector roads, addressing access management along Route 302 such as limiting left turns through deployment of a center median, and making corridor and intersection improvements in the area. Heavy traffic during peak travel times remains a problem along Route 302 from the intersection of Route 115 to Franklin Road and causes congestion, motorist delays and a high accident rate for motorists.
Some of the challenges to the area began in the 1990s, Martin said, when Route 302 was expanded from two to five lanes in North Windham with few sidewalks in the area.
“Route 302 was never designed to serve as both a local street dotted with businesses and a through-route for travelers heading to Sebago Lake and other western destinations,” he said. “Routes 35 and 115 are facing similar challenges.”
Traffic has increased so much in recent years it has taken a toll on safety.
“The project area had seven high-crash locations in the three-year period from 2018 to 2020,” Martin said.
The MDOT project was announced in 2023 and when construction is completed, the area should be much safer, he said.
“The construction of the numerous safety elements on this project is expected to reduce vehicle crashes by 21 percent,” Martin said. The safety improvements to be implemented, he said, “will aid in reducing crashes and injuries in a commercial area that has grown rapidly around outdated safety features – or no safety features at all.”
The North Windham Moves road construction project’s open house will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. June 18 at Windham Town Hall at 8 School Road in the Town Hall Gymnasium. Questions can be directed to Maine Department of Transportation Senior Project Manager Ernie Martin at 207-592-0567 or ernest.martin@maine.gov. <
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