The existing Maine Turnpike (I-95) toll plaza was built in 1969. It was expected to last 25 years. Unfortunately, the Authority built the facility on wetlands; it’s sinking at a rate of about an inch a year. Finding an alternative site has been… problematic. For one thing, the southern end of the Maine Turnpike is littered with wetlands. For another, the proposed “dry land” location is meeting stiff local opposition. According to The Portland Press Herald, York residents don’t want the $35m toll plaza. "They're taking out our neighborhood," says Michael Walek. Walek says a crash at the toll plaza involving a chemical truck carrying chemicals– or a chlorine leak at the local treatment plant– would endanger hundreds of lives. "You certainly couldn't evacuate a backed-up highway like we get in the summertime." Suggestion: Just tear down the plaza that’s sinking, tighten the budget belt and call it good.
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The people in charge of the Maine Turnpike generally aren’t too bright in terms of finances. For anyone that’s driving north on I-95 in Maine, here’s a money saving tip: get off at the Maine Mall road exit (exit 45). If you get off at exit 44, you’ll have to go through a plaza and pay 60 cents. You can go to the same places by getting off at exit 45 and it’s free. That’s just one of the ridiculous things about the turnpike, nevermind the on ramps in certain locations that were apparently built by drunk and/or high engineers. One good thing though, during the winter the turnpike is usually well plowed.
I’m pretty sure Atlanta solved that ‘issue’ by prohibiting hazardous materials on SR400 between I-285 and I-85 – the section where it’s a toll road. There’s signs everywhere as you approach. I’m sure if there are alternate routes, Maine could do the same. Or the residents could find a real problem with toll plazas.
Problem is, Megan, there are no real alternate routes in that section of the Maine turnpike, unless you want to route the hazardous materials onto narrow Route 1.
There’s 1 major highway into Maine from the south, and I-95 is it.
brettc-
What is even sillier is that exit 45 is free if you pay cash, but costs you 55 cents with easypass! It’s the first high speed easypass collector in Maine!
baabthesaab :
Weird…I’d be tucking my E-ZPass into its little plastic bag everytime I used that exit. In PA, we have some Turnpike slip ramps that are E-ZPass only because they’re not staffed.
So a toll plaza was supposed to last 25 years is falling apart, but it has already given them 39 years of service? Sounds like it’s on borrowed time anyway.
Forget where they put it, $35 million for a toll plaza is just an obscene waste of taxpayer money. Do the math, it’s about $2 million per booth.
This is just one of the many reasons MTA should be abolished. This is an organization that treats themselves to fancy dinners with $295 bottles of wine, at our expense. Last year they spent $26,000 to send 5 people to Vienna to learn how to collect tolls (no irony there). Currently spending millions of dollars ($4.8 million to be exact) for high-speed EZ Pass in the middle of nowhere (New Gloucester) for no good reason (noise reduction – who cares – the cows?)
As a Maine taxpayer and frequent Turnpike user, nothing would make me happier than to see the whole MTA organization disbandeded and every thieving MTA bureaucrat out on the streets looking for new jobs.
With apologies to the Monty Python cast:
“When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a toll plaza on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Lad, the strongest toll plaza in all of New England.”
Oh yes, keep in mind this is an agency that maintains about 100 miles of road, total.