TOPSHAM

Residents and business owners who attended a forum regarding a Lower Village traffic study Monday spent much of the night focused on the idea of putting a roundabout on Main Street, near Green Street.

The forum was held by the town’s Lower Village Development Committee, which commissioned the traffic study to be conducted by Gorrill-Palmer, which conducted the town’s last comprehensive traffic plan in 2005.

John Shattuck, the economic and community development director, said the new study will be focused from the Frank J. Wood Bridge to Elm Street, and ancillary streets.

“We’re open and we have resources to expand or refocus the study,” he said, based on input Monday.

The study was commissioned after completion last fall of the Lower Village Waterfront Access Study Report, which looked at the possibility of a park in the Lower Village to create public water access, long a town goal.

That report addressed vehicular traffic and the need to address the traffic flow throughout the Lower Village, where it can be difficult for cars leaving roads and businesses along Main Street to make lefthand turns.

The waterfront access study report points to vehicle traffic entering Main Street near the Bowdoin Mill as one of the greatest challenges, because there isn’t adequate width in the public right-of-way to make road improvements such as turning lanes or a roundabout.

As part of the study, some Green Street residents wanted that road to be a dead-end road or one-way instead of two-way. Possible improvement of the Elm Street intersection is also recommended in the report in addition to improving pedestrian access to the Lower Village.

Topsham Development Inc., which funded the study, wants the study to look at having another protected pedestrian crossing on Main Street just over the Frank J. Wood Bridge.

Tom Gorrill of Gorrill-Palmer said the firm has done some roundabouts at the Auburn Mall, Biddeford Crossing, and one recently completed in Bath.

“One thing these all have in common, except for maybe Bath, is most people initially don’t like them too much until they get to use them, and about a month or so they really change their mind about them,” Gorrill said.

A roundabout is different than a rotary, he explained, and is like a circular intersection.

“What you’re supposed to do is basically go to the right when you enter it, but you’re supposed to yield to entering traffic,” Gorrill said. They are very controlled, and much smaller than a rotary so traffic flows much slower through them.

He said roundabouts reduce collisions at intersections by about 35 percent and fatalities by 90 percent over a traditional intersection, because of lower speeds. Roundabouts also keep vehicles moving and don’t require signal equipment to maintain, Gorrill said.

A roundabout on Main Street is being explored for the Green Street intersection because there isn’t space to put it down further, but Gorrill said the firm can look at options.

Residents and business owners had questions about how a roundabout would improve pedestrian safety, and whether it could handle the traffic.

Green Street resident John Kibler asked who would pay for any recommended traffic improvements.

Shattuck said it is unlikely the Maine Department of Transportation would fund the improvements, so it would be something the town would have to consider.

He said the traffic study is just an investigation as an outflow of the ongoing efforts to provide public waterfront access in the Lower Village.

Gorrill-Palmer hopes to report back to the Lower Village Development Committee in early January.