Gorham town councilors are seeking a Maine Turnpike spur to compliment the Gorham bypass in relieving traffic congestion.

Town Council Chairman Burleigh Loveitt said a spur could be functional in five years and would be a traffic solution for generations down the road.

“It’s not a patch job,” Loveitt said, referring to a potential spur as a more comprehensive approach to solving Gorham’s traffic congestion problems.

Loveitt wrote a letter last Thursday inviting the Maine Turnpike Authority to discuss Gorham traffic problems with town officials. Loveitt’s letter came on the heels of a council discussion on a more regional approach to addressing traffic problems in a workshop meeting on Sept. 20.

“It evolved quickly,” Loveitt said of the proposal to contact the Turnpike Authority. He added that contacting them was a preliminary step in the process.

The town got good news this summer. When it passed a federal transportation bill, the U.S. Congress earmarked $15 million for the southerly portion of a long awaited bypass of Gorham Village. The money Congress approved would build a three-mile swing around Gorham Village, linking routes 114 (South Street) and 25 (Ossipee Trail) near Brandy Brook Hill. The federal money didn’t include building a northerly portion of a bypass connecting Mosher’s Corner with Route 25 in West Gorham.

Loveitt said a spur would compliment the hard work of Maine’s congressional delegation in getting federal money for the bypass. “This is supplemental to what they helped us achieve,” Loveitt said.

The southerly bypass would ease the traffic crunch in Gorham Village but wouldn’t address traffic congestion in South Gorham where routes 114 and 22 converge and overlap. “It would eliminate that virtually in its entirety,” Loveitt said of a spur.

A construction start for the southerly bypass is still likely a few years away, and Gorham councilors said a Turnpike spur connecting with the bypass would eliminate traffic congestion in Gorham. Loveitt said a Y-shaped Turnpike spur could feed into the southerly bypass route with another connector splitting off to Mosher’s Corner.

Turnpike Authority Executive Director Paul Violette said representatives from the Authority would likely meet with Gorham before Oct. 11. “I would imagine they want to link with the Turnpike,” Violette said before the Turnpike Authority’s annual meeting on Tuesday in Portland.

Violette said the Turnpike Authority is now conducting a financial assessment to determine whether a toll road spur would be feasible. He said the Maine Department of Transportation and Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee asked for a fresh economic analysis of a Turnpike spur to Gorham.

Town Councilor Calvin Hamblen said Gorham should be looking at what it would take to make a bypass work and someone to pay to build approaches for a bypass. Hamblen praised the letter Loveitt wrote and advocated talks with the Turnpike Authority.

“Jump the gun and tell them what we want,” Hamblen said.

Without a spur, Hamblen worried that a bypass would just redirect traffic to another area of town if Gorham didn’t take action. “Something’s got to be done, or we’ll be worse off,” Hamblen said.

With a new sewer line approved to run from Little Falls along Mosher Road to Route 25 (Main Street) and into Westbrook, Hamblen also sees a need for help in that area as development will increase. Hamblen said that help would likely be “toll roads.”

But the spur proposal sparked one fear about eminent domain. A Main Street resident, Joseph N. Martin, who lives adjacent to Mosher’s Corner, doesn’t want to lose his home where he has lived since 1991. “As long as they don’t take my house, I don’t care where it goes,” Martin said.

Loveitt said a Turnpike spur would be a “tremendous economic benefit” to future Gorham residents. He said a spur would encourage industry to locate in Gorham’s industrial park. Loveitt cited ease of local trucks loaded with products made in Gorham to access the highway system.

“I see this as an economic development tool as much as a convenience,” Loveitt said of a spur.

He said the area including Buxton, Hollis and Standish would continue to grow. “I think it will be good for the whole area not just Gorham,” he said.

John Duncan, director of Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee, said a Gorham spur would hookup with the Turnpike in the Maine Mall area of South Portland at the old Exit 7. A spur would go through a portion of Scarborough and possibly part of Westbrook. He said the spur would run close to the Gorham Country Club before connecting with the bypass.