Portland, Saco and Scarborough will install temporary improvements this summer in an effort to make busy roads safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.
Nearly 30 people were killed or seriously injured in crashes last year in the area, according to the Greater Portland Council of Governments. Pedestrian-involved crashes have continued into this year, including a fatal crash in mid-June on Marginal Way and Preble Street in Portland.
Improvements include installing flexible traffic guide posts, speed bumps and roadway paint, said Cashel Stewart, transportation planning manager for the government council.
“We’re trying to do some low-cost, quick-build projects that improve roadway design that have some interim benefit but also allow the communities that we’re working with to test out some designs and see how they’re working before making the big-money investments in their communities,” he said.
Work started Tuesday in Saco on a stretch of Main Street between Cutts Avenue and Water Street and will next week on Route 1 in Scarborough from Hannaford Drive to Little Dolphin Drive.
And later in July, crews will be in Portland to install pedestrian crossing improvements on a stretch of Commercial Street between Dana and Franklin streets.
The council said the temporary infrastructure will be removed by November.
All three locations in Portland, Saco and Scarborough were identified as problematic areas in Greater Portland’s Vision Zero action plan.
“Crashes happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they involve cyclists and pedestrians, but I’d say more often than not they are involving car-on-car, car-on-truck, and those can be just as fatal and just as terrible,” Stewart said. “A lot of that has to do with roadway design too; a lot of that has to do with speeds. Part of the project we’re doing on Main Street in Saco and Route 1 in Scarborough is just trying to slow speeds through corridors that are dangerous by design.”
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.