Gorham East-West Corridor Feasibility Study: An Exercise in Possibilities

CHALLENGE: In the face of accelerated regional growth, the communities in the corridor west of Portland have been experiencing significant transportation congestion and delays. With the vast majority of projected new jobs and population growth in the next 25 years likely to locate in Cumberland and York, the problems can only get worse. Initial study findings show sizable increases in traffic volume on residential roads; increased travel delays; more and more dangerous intersections; major impacts on habitat and open space; and a continuing gap in distance between homes and jobs. The study’s challenge is to find the right combination of transportation and land use strategies to maintain quality of life in this corridor.

STRATEGY: Using some of the principles forged in Gateway 1, the study team helped the MaineDOT launch a complex multi-community transportation and land use study of the corridor, involving not just the four core communities but those surrounding them. Morris helped the team coalesce a large and diverse advisory committee, bringing together stakeholders from transportation and land use advocacy groups. Thus far, the team and committees have chosen a more dense regional land use development pattern to test, and are in the process of developing a set of Measures of Effectiveness to analyze whether this pattern would have a positive impact on the problems. The effort also includes a Low Density Analysis, or a look at what would happen by 2035 if no actions were taken to remedy transportation challenges.

RESULTS: As unanimously agreed to by the steering and advisory committees, the study team is currently analyzing an “Urban to Rural” pattern, which would retain a high share of jobs in the core urban communities within the corridor, and dramatically increase residential growth in Portland, holding growth steady in the inner suburbs and reducing residential growth in outlying communities. In upcoming months, the result of this analysis will be rolled out to the committees and the public to get feedback on next steps.