State and local barriers are mounting in death blows to the proposed turnpike connector to Gorham.

This week, Westbrook scuttled its initial support of the project, joining Scarborough, which rescinded its support last October. Last week, a legislative bill was introduced to strip Maine Turnpike Authority of state approval to build the connector.

The Westbrook and legislative measures followed the MTA’s March 6 announcement that it deferred traffic relief that the connector was designed to handle to the Maine Department of Transportation.

Besides loss of traffic relief, one Gorham councilor said the connector’s demise is detrimental to the town’s effort to attract non-residential growth.

“I fear Gorham has been critically and negatively impacted by the decisions of the MTA and the town of Scarborough,” Gorham Town Councilor Phil Gagnon wrote to the American Journal just days before Westbrook, on Monday, followed Scarborough’s lead to walk back its support.

The proposed 4.8-mile, four-lane toll connector was to link the roundabout at the South Street (Route 114) junction of Gorham’s Bernard Rines Bypass with turnpike Exit 45 in South Portland.

The state Legislature, in 2017, authorized without requiring the turnpike authority to build a Gorham Connector. Councils in four communities – Gorham, Scarborough, South Portland and Westbrook – signed on to support the project and each signed a memorandum of agreement in 2022.

Gagnon

Gagnon said in a letter to the editor that Gorham invested time and resources centered on a connector and will lose economic development because the plan has been dropped.

Gagnon wrote that Gorham in 2019 purchased 141 acres to expand its existing industrial park to broaden the town’s tax base. Gagnon said with the investment in conjunction with a turnpike connector, Gorham would have had opportunities for commercial expansion to ease the tax burden on homeowners.

Erin Courtney, MTA’s marketing manager, said the MTA would decline comment without seeing Gagnon’s letter, but Scarborough Town Council Vice Chair Jonathan Anderson responded to an American Journal request for comment sent to Town Manager Tom Hall.

“I voted to remove support of the Gorham Connector in Scarborough for many reasons,” Anderson wrote.

Anderson cited environmental concerns for Red Brook, preserving Scarborough’s rural character and the impact of the proposed connector’s swath through Smiling Hill Farm.

Westbrook City Council with no board discussion March 17 voted 6-0, with Vice President Anna Turcotte absent, to also walk back its support of the connector. Westbrook Mayor David Morse said it “seems like a moot issue” following MTA’s earlier announcement.

Before the board voted, Westbrook resident Paul Drinan, a member of the connector opposition group, Mainers for Smarter Transportation, said when the path for the connector was announced in February last year, “public outcry was swift and strong.”

Last week, Sen. Stacy Brenner, representing Gorham and part of Scarborough, introduced L.D. 1020. The bill would repeal the laws providing for the construction of a connector to Gorham, with a provision to require acquired land be resold to previous owners. Co-sponsors of the bill include Reps. Eleanor Sato and Parnell Terry, both of Gorham; Kelly Murphy and Sophia Warren, both of Scarborough; and Drew Gattine, Westbrook.

The bill was referred to the Committee on Transportation and Anderson is hoping L.D. 1020 passes.

Traffic in the corridor, Gagnon predicts, will escalate. He said Gorham has approved 2,000 more housing units to be constructed, allowing “faster build-out times,” and he said other communities west of Gorham are not halting development.

An alternative resolution for the connector to reduce traffic congestion now falls to the Maine Department of Transportation. Former Gorham Town Council Chair Ben Hartwell, responding to an American Journal email request for comment, said he recognizes increased transportation capacity is necessary and in South Gorham there are “few, if any, viable alternatives.”

However, Hartwell said transportation expansion must be paired with smart land use planning to avoid “worsening traffic over time,” and Gorham has no control over “how neighboring towns like Standish, Buxton and Hollis manage their land use.”