By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

Commuter traffic has slowed between Scarborough Marsh and the Saco line and the Department of Transportation (DOT) could be putting the brakes on their paving program, but Scarborough town officials are saying installation of roughly $1 million worth of concrete sidewalk, curbs and grass esplanades in the Dunstan neighborhood is right on schedule. 

“The curb should begin going in next week and the sidewalks from there on out,” Public Works Director Mike Shaw said. “All in all we should be looking at final completion on October 15.”

Shaw said Peters Construction, the contractor who was awarded the project, has done a “really great job” handling traffic flow through the Dunstan neighborhood and has managed to avoid restricting traffic during peak hours. In spite of traffic interruptions, the construction company has prepped the sides of the road for sidewalks, modified the edge of the road surface to integrate new concrete curbs, replaced several catch-basins and were “finishing up” construction of a final drainage structure earlier this week, Shaw said.

“It’s moving along quickly,” Town Manager Ron Owens said. 

Owens said the project is designed to “try and make [Dunstan] a little safer” for pedestrians and bicyclists. Wherever possible, the new walkway will be installed farther away from the roadside than the original bituminous sidewalks, he said. 

“Four or five years ago we did some repair work, but it was still too close to the edge of the roadway,” Owens said. “The town council didn’t think it was safe.”

The shift in location has required the town to secure easements from property owners along Route 1 where the new sidewalk is outside the road right-of-way, he said.

“Some people might have more sidewalk on their property, but it doesn’t affect setbacks,” Owens said. 

Gorrill Palmer Consulting Engineers spokesperson Tom Gorrill said new sidewalks include landscaping and a wider base. 

“There were some places it wasn’t possible to do it that way because either utilities, trees or structures were in the way,” he said. “It will still be a wider sidewalk and hopefully be a better place for people to walk and ride.”

The sidewalk – partly funded by a $550,000 bond approved by the town council in February and an $87,000 state grant – may not be as expensive as originally projected and any extra funds could be used for additional landscaping in the esplanade – a strip of grass between the curb and the walkway – to further increase pedestrian separation from the road, Owens said.

“Esplanades are usually a landscaped area that create a buffer from the cars,” Gorrill said. “In this case it’s just a strip of grass, but they could do more.”

Gorrill said often concrete sidewalks are accompanied by granite curbing, which can last longer than concrete curbs, but said the road base of Route 1 would not have easily accommodated the more durable – and expensive – granite curbs.

“The old roadway is concrete underneath the bituminous with various things reinforcing it,” he said. “To put in granite curbing we would have to tear up the concrete roadway. It would be astronomically expensive and be a significantly longer project.”

Owens said possible cutbacks in the DOT paving program could affect the repaving schedule of Route 1, but not the installation of the new curbing. 

“We have made an arrangement with [DOT] to do some paving to stabilize the curb and get us through the winter,” he said. 

Owens said the town council “has yet to tackle” the decision on who will maintain the new pathway. Much of the new sidewalk is located on private property, but Owens said in the past the council has agreed that sidewalks along Route 1 would be maintained by the town rather than property owners.

“It would be an astronomical amount of shoveling to ask people to do,” he said. 

Owens said he was hopeful the project would enhance the downtown area of the Dunstan neighborhood and possibly also attract new businesses as the area “caters more to a walking community.”