BATH, Maine — “Zippah” is not a term of endearment in Maine.
It has taken on added negative connotations for southbound Route 1 motorists who must navigate a temporary new traffic pattern after crossing the Sagadahoc Bridge into Bath. What for decades was a simple crossing has morphed into a perilous merge pattern that forces drivers to squeeze into one lane as they dodge construction crews on the outskirts of downtown Bath.
Since the Maine Department of Transportation began a $14 million project to replace the Bath Viaduct, which carries Route 1 over local streets and the Central Maine & Quebec Railway line, signs announcing the “zipper” ask drivers who have crossed the bridge southbound in two lanes to take turns merging into one column before descending onto Vine Street and then up again to continue on Route 1.
But those drivers soon found that the zipper, or the “zippah,” for most Mainers, wasn’t that simple after all — especially when shift changes at nearby Bath Iron Works added hundreds of vehicles to the mix.
Despite flashing signs across from Dairy Queen in Woolwich, at the approach to the bridge that spans the Kennebec River, that prompt drivers to “Use both lanes” and “Take turns merging,” drivers were “acting like the bridge police” and preventing the merge in order to keep “cheaters” from jumping the line.
“Blocking cars on the left side from using the merge correctly,” Jennifer Murray told the Bangor Daily News. “Cars were being forced from the right lane over into the guardrail because of the aggression.”
Bath police did their best, posting on their Facebook page in November, “TAKE TURNS!” and “Please don’t be disrespectful and cause road rage.”
“Just go one at a time. It’s nothing new,” Bath police Lt. Robert Savary said Thursday. “They teach you this in driver’s ed. You let a car through, and then you go. Leave a little earlier, anticipate some minor delays — maybe a 10-minute delay, which isn’t much.”
“I don’t DARE go in the left lane for fear of someone getting road rage and hitting me/accident,” Allison Lee Stanley wrote on Nov. 17 on the Bath PD Facebook page.
Savary said the zipper pattern was developed by engineers who say it will lead to the fewest delays but that some drivers “have a sense of fairness and think they need to wait in the right lane. But that causes more problems than it solves.”
The Bath Viaduct Construction Traffic Updates Facebook page, which was developed to provide daily updates on the traffic, had 1,239 members as of Thursday.
“7.25 southbound,” one woman wrote Wednesday morning. “One lane through. Smooth sailing.”
Still, the zippah triggers rage on a regular basis.
On Nov. 29, a Boothbay Harbor man was issued a summons for driving to endanger, a misdemeanor, after police determined he repeatedly bumped another car with his car at the merge, Savary said Thursday.
“That was probably the worst one,” Savary said, though police have stopped others — or spoken to them while the driver is stopped in traffic — to warn them to be courteous or risk a criminal summons for driving to endanger, failure to give right of way or a host of other charges that could result in a substantial fine or a day in court.
The department responds for traffic control when Reed & Reed, the contractors replacing the 59-year-old viaduct, request it in order to move the project along, and provide sporadic coverage on the bridge to remind drivers, but they don’t have the staff to monitor it 24 hours a day.
“People just need to take a deep breath,” he said.
Or find the humor in the situation, which is the solution Murray chose when she created a bumper sticker, “I survived the zippah! #bathviaduct,” that she’s selling for $3 on Facebook.
“After all, we know this isn’t going away until May,” Murray said.
But according to a Tuesday update from the MDOT, the project is about three weeks ahead of schedule, with 15 of 19 pier columns completed, and the first of 20 superstructure spans in place.
MDOT spokesman Ted Talbot said drivers should still expect daily lane closures — possibly around-the-clock — through April, with the exception of eastbound travel from 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays and westbound from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.
The new viaduct is expected to open by Memorial Day.