Subject: strategy for/after this Friday’s Stakeholders’ Meeting
Date: Thursday, July 15, 2010 5:34 PM
From: Stephen Kosacz <[deleted for spam protection]>
To: [Deleted for privacy. — The Ed.]
Conversation: strategy for/after this Friday’s Stakeholders’ Meeting
This Friday’s Connection Study sounds like it will be a non-event but at least we’ll be continuing the dialogue and showing that the Community is not taking every possible opportunity to be heard.
I think that Ben Porter has offered some rational dialog to the babble by pointing out that the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge has enough life left to it that decisions on that could be tabled for the present connections study since the most sensible solution for vehicle traffic being maintained during construction and improved maritime traffic is a new bridge built alongside, or, if Maine DOT really has to save money, simply repairing the current SML bridge to buy it a couple of decades when bridge construction technology may have improved and increased traffic projections become a reality.
This begs a question for tomorrow’s conference call with both DOTs — what would be wrong with simply replacing the Memorial Bridge and repairing the SML bridge when the latter is needed in 5-7 years?
remember to ask DOT/HNTB – with no reduction in vehicle traffic resulting on the Memorial despite projected increase in cycle and ped traffic on a more bike/ped friendly MB, can the 3 bridges adequately handle vehicle traffic as projected for the next 10 years? (i.e. Memorial Bridge replaced, SML repaired in 5-7 years, I-95 as is)
[Two paragraphs in which several people are introduced, deleted for privacy.]
The local and NH press has been working on this but Maine press seems indifferent.
Not being an experienced community activist, I don’t know what we do next.
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Stephen Kosacz