AUBURN — City crews were fixing a Court Street sinkhole Tuesday, not testing a lane-narrowing strategy.
“If we had a bit more notice, it might have been nice to get some traffic counting equipment out,” said Eric Cousens, Auburn’s deputy director of planning and development. “But it was not intentional, not in any way. We didn’t know it was going to happen.”
City Project Engineer Tony Beaulieu said crews discovered a collapsed sewer connection Friday that created a sinkhole in Court Street. Traffic narrowed to one lane in either direction while the work continued. It wrapped up Tuesday afternoon.
City councilors have authorized repainting the lanes along Court Street in that area, narrowing traffic to one lane in either direction with additional parking on both sides of the street. It’s designed to slow down drivers and make downtown Auburn more conducive to walking and small businesses.
Critics have said the change will turn the road into a parking lot, slowing travel to a stop. A traffic study by Lewiston officials shows evening rush-hour backups to Sabattus and Main streets, due to the changes.
Cousens said he received a copy of a new traffic study Tuesday that shows less drastic backups. The 150-page study is being reviewed by Auburn staff now, and he said he plans to schedule a review with the Maine Department of Transportation, the city of Lewiston and the Androscoggin Transportation Resource Center during the last week of July.
“But this would have been the perfect test, if we’d have been able to plan it,” he said. “It probably was not up long enough to really judge people’s habits. But I was watching about 7:30 this m0rning and people did seem to be driving slower. And it did not seem that there were any serious backups.”
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