MAINE:Aroostook Pike?

The US congressmen from northern Maine Senator Susan Collins and Rep John Baldacci say the locals in Aroostook co need one thing more than anything – a modern road link to the US interstate system. The old familiar I-95 comes up from Boston through Bangor, heads their way almost due north, then suddenly, beckoned by the traffic of Halifax and the rest of the Maritimes, it turns right to end at the Canadian border pointing at Fredericton NB and Halifax NS. The people of Aroostook co are left cut off from the rest of America. The US is providing $2.7m for studies of how best to upgrade road connections in a corridor between Smyrna Mills and Houlston on I-95 where it is running E-W for 150km (90mi) up to the northernmost point of the St John R at Ft Kent and Madawaska.

Innovatory design needed

Head of planning at Maine’s DOT, Carl Croce has already issued a study contract to VHB for some of the work but he’s interested in innovative ideas for low volume/high quality roads. And he says it is quite likely tolls will be needed to finance the road.

The challenge will be to design a toll road that is good enough to gain political support and paying patrons, while being affordable. To do something better than a single lane each way rural arterial without going to the cost of a 2x2 lane divided motorway.

They need safe, very high speed travel, which is very difficult on just 2-lanes because of head-on collisions when the opposite lane has to be used for overtaking, and because of the lack of median. Fatality rates on 2-lane roads are fully twice that of divided highways (10 vs 5/billion veh-km). And over long stretches, speed can be set by the slowest driver.

Suggestions

Here’s our ideas for MEDOT’s Croce (though maybe they are worth no more than it is costing him):

(1) Leave the AASHTO Green Book right there on the shelf

(2) 90mph design speed for sight distances to allow 80mph posted speed limit

(3) Minimize design and set up costs and maximize future flexibility by building standard pavement slab 13.8m (45') wide the whole darned 150km

(4) Have a 5.4m (17') central paved buffer median do double duty as a breakdown refuge

(5) Alternate a passing lane south, buffer/breakdown median, passing lane north, buffer/breakdown median, passing lane south etc – barrier alongside the passing lane sections only

(6) Wake-up rumble grooves in the 0.6m offsets both sides

(7) Use work zone type pick-uppable concrete barrier for low cost reconfiguring of the road

(8) Access control but intersections at grade except when cross-traffic vol justifies IC

(9) Point tolling system with toll gantry between each intersection supporting transponders and imaging – no cash

(10) Carlos I’ll-Wait Benavides III gotten up from Laredo TX to negotiate the construction contract

10% of the US interstate system - all 2x2-lanes - carries less than 6,000 veh/day, the kinds of traffic numbers they’ll be lucky to get in these remote parts of ME. The interstate standard is quite unjustified for these traffic numbers. It is a minimum 2 x 10.6m (34') of pavement, 21.2m (68') total, or 50% more than our design above. The dual roadways have higher land, grading, drainage and maintenance expenses because of the center median. The single pavement design, we’d wager, at these low traffic volumes would be just as safe and as fast. At about 60% the cost? (Contact Carl Croce MEDOT 207 287 3131)