The Maine Turnpike Authority is moving ahead with plans to overhaul the exit 63 interchange in Gray, with a goal of completing the project in the summer of 2017.

Turnpike representatives presented a preliminary plan to overhaul the interchange and the nearby intersections at a Gray Town Council meeting Tuesday night. In November 2012, turnpike officials presented several scenarios for the overhaul, which was motivated by concerns relating to the structural soundness of the deteriorating bridge that links the I-95 southbound off-ramp to the toll plaza abutting Route 202.

Turnpike officials have since settled on one comprehensive overhaul proposal affecting the areas between the Route 26A (Gray bypass) intersection with Route 202 and Gray Corner. According to Pete Cleary, the turnpike authority’s contracted project manager, the project is now heading into its final design stages, with a target of starting construction in April 2016.

The proposed overhaul would eliminate the deteriorating southbound exit ramp/bridge over the highway, and relocate the southbound ramps to the west side of the turnpike, forming a four-legged intersection with the Gray bypass and Route 202, on the site of the present park-and-ride facility. The existing exit 63 toll plaza, which does not collect tolls from northbound drivers, would also be relocated to the west side of the highway.

“Essentially the southbound ramps are being relocated over to the west side of the interchange,” Cleary said at the Tuesday hearing. “The existing southbound ramp-bridge is going to be removed. The northbound ramps are going to be reconstructed to some degree up in the area of the toll plaza.”

Meanwhile, the exit 63 park-and-ride facility, located just to the south of the Gray bypass intersection with Route 202, will be moved north, and reconstructed in an expanded form along the east side of the bypass across from the Northbrook Business Park. Construction of the expanded park-and-ride facility, which the turnpike is treating as a separate project, will begin this summer and is scheduled to end in the fall. The new park-and-ride facility will contain about 130 parking spaces, while the existing one has 78 parking spaces.

Other changes include minor repairs to the Route 202 bridge over the turnpike, as well as signal coordination improvement along Route 202, Cleary said.

“Right now the existing signals that are out there both at the Gray bypass intersection, the ramps intersection and the Gray village intersection – right now they’re not coordinated at all, so they all act independently,” Cleary said. “So we’re going to make some improvements to all four of those intersections.”

The proposed design would coordinate the four traffic signals in the area surrounding the interchange with an underground and overhead fiber-optic cable communications system. It would also include new traffic guide signs at the Gray Corner intersection heading eastbound.

To Town Council Chairman Matt Sturgis, the proposed guide sign changes and traffic signal coordination are welcome developments.

“I think it will improve the flow and make it less confusing – it gets chaotic up there,” Sturgis said. “We’re having one left-turn (lane), one straight through, and one right-turn lane, as opposed to now, when there’s two left-turn lanes, and then one which is a straight and right-turn lane combined.”

At the meeting, the turnpike officials received limited questioning from members of the public. Resident Kevin Kimball asked if the authority had plans to grow greenery near the new southbound ramp.

“On your southbound (ramp), are you going to have a field in there, trees on the side?” Kimball asked.

“Right now we’ve only got the preliminary design,” Cleary responded. “That’s kind of a final design detail.”

According to turnpike authority planner Sara Zografos, turnpike officials will return to the Gray Town Council for a final presentation in about a year.

For Sturgis, the authority’s second presentation to the council was useful, if not particularly groundbreaking.

“Outside of finer details, the most I learned from it was the picture is getting sharper as far as how the whole thing is going to be structured, set up, and whatnot,” Sturgis said. “The plans are much more refined then they were back in November 2012.”

As part of the Maine Turnpike Authority’s forthcoming interchange overhaul, the exit 63 park-and-ride facility, located to the south of the Gray bypass intersection with Route 202, will be moved north, and reconstructed in an expanded form along the east side of the bypass across from the Northbrook Business Park. The new park-and-ride facility will contain about 130 parking spaces, while the existing one has 78 parking spaces.Photo courtesy of the Maine Turnpike Authority