Staff Writer
HOULTON — If you take a close look at Bangor Street in Houlton you’ll notice that there’s enough heavy equipment stockpiled to invade Canada. But not to worry. It’ s just the state getting ready to begin the long-awaited reconstruction of the highway.
Starting Wednesday, crews will begin milling the 1.3-mile long road.
“Their intent is to take up all of the hot top so that the road will be more drivable without the hot top on it,” explained Houlton Town Manager Doug Hazlett. “It’s going to be all rebuilt, and it’s going to have curbing, and it’s going to have drainage. It’s going to be a significantly better road for many, many years to come.”
The two-year, $4.8 million project has been anticipated since 2000. After eight years of negotiating and painstaking letter writing, the town, state and federal government have made commitments to get the work done.
“Our share of that is a little over $400,000, which we pay for over a period of four years,” said Hazlett. “A $200,000 payment was made last fall and this year we have to put $100,000 and next year we’ll put the balance of the contract in.”
That averages out as 10 percent funding from the town, 10 percent from the state and 80 percent from the federal government. Hazlett said by creating the infrastructure, such as roads, the impact on the community’s economic development is “significant.”
“Especially the closer you get to the town it is going to change the nature of all of that property because the road will become more drivable, the property will become more valuable,” he said. “People will be more willing to go out there than they are right now. I think there is an absolute correlation between the quality of your roads and streets and economic development.
“The way Bangor Street is now: if you wanted to invest in a business, why would you do it there?” said Hazlett. “It reflects poorly on the town when people look at it and say ‘here’s a town that can’t even maintain its streets.’”
Hazlett has personally felt the frustration involved in getting the project done. He said Bangor Street, as well as Military Street, is the responsibility of the state because they’re state highways. Hazlett said it is up to the town to maintain them, however, simply filling in the potholes is not even an alternative at this point.
“The (Bangor) road is more potholes than it is pavement,” said Hazlett. “The more you fill them, the more unleveled it gets, the more water gets into them and it breaks up more and that was very evident this spring when the road ceased being a road. Anytime a road is better by grinding all the hot top off it, you know you have a bad road.”
The engineering phase of Bangor Street should be completed by the end of this summer. The remainder of the project will be finished in 2009.
