In late November, your Forest Lake Association forwarded notification from the Maine Turnpike Authority about projects planned for 2018 in the Forest Lake community.
Interested citizens were encouraged to review the MTA 2018 Projects and/or to contact Ralph C. Norwood, Maine Turnpike Authority for additional information.
Project information is also posted on the MTA Dutton Hill Bridge Repairs page.
Lake resident Charlie Mitchell [Gray] took this a step further and contacted his local representative, Dale Denno.
Following is the response Rep. Denno received from MTA. We hope that it helps clarify the scope and intent of the MTA emergency vehicle access ramps project.
We advisse lake residents to contact Erin Courtney, MTA or your local representative for additional detail or to share any concerns about the project. FLA will continue to share project news with the lake community with our email news distribution, so please encourage your neighbors, family, and friends to subscribe.
Forest Lake Association
Board of Trustees
From: “Courtney, Erin T.” <ECourtney@maineturnpike.com>
Date: January 19, 2018 at 11:43:59 AM EST
To: “repdenno@gmail.com” <repdenno@gmail.com>
Subject: Emergency Access Vehicle Ramps – Dutton Hill Road
Good morning Representative Denno,
Thanks for reaching out regarding the access ramps near Dutton Hill Road Bridge that will soon be constructed. I understand that you have heard some concern about these ramps possibly leading to larger scale access to the Turnpike at these locations. I can assure you that is not the case. As I had mentioned on the phone, we are in the process of trying to eliminate cross overs in the medians that are currently used by our snow plows, maintenance and State Police. We are eliminating these, both for the safety of our workers, and that of the traveling public. We are installing emergency vehicle access (EVA) ramps in locations that work with the plow drivers’ current routes. These ramps will be gated will be accessible only by MTA maintenance vehicles, staff or emergency response vehicles.
There are numerous locations along the Turnpike where these ramps already exist, such as South Street in Biddeford, Flag Pond Road in Saco and Hallowell Road in Litchfield. We also recently completed EVA ramps in two other locations: Two Rod Road in Scarborough (2016) and Hackett Road in Auburn (2017). I’ve attached a copy of the letter that was sent out to residents directly adjacent to the project. It includes an aerial view of where these ramps will be (this was a slide from a presentation to the Gray Town Council in October).
Also, I would like to mention that there is additional construction work scheduled for Dutton Hill Road Bridge in 2018 as part of this project. In the spring, we will reach out to abutters who live on Dutton Hill Road as we will be replacing the bridge superstructure this summer and it will require the bridge to be closed during this time. We will send out a letter describing the project, associated detours and duration.
I’ve included a link to the project page on our website: http://www.maineturnpike.com/duttonhillrdbridge This page will be updated monthly with progress reports and does a nice job in explaining the scope of the project.
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me.
Best wishes
Erin T. Courtney
Public Relations
Maine Turnpike Authority
Desk: 207-482-8119 |Mobile: (207) 513-2982
ecourtney@maineturnpike.com|www.maineturnpike.com
2360 Congress Street
Portland, Maine 04102