Bath’s iconic shipbuilding past never envisioned the advent of the automobile or the possible enormity of a single shipyard’s workforce whose majority wouldn’t even reside within Bath. That reality has been an endless struggle borne chiefly by Bath residents below Leeman Highway and by BIW’s commuter workforce. Each struggling separately rather than finding a mutual remedy.

Though largely coincidental, General Dynamics’ TIF underwritten Land Level Transfer Facility planned one-third reduction of BIW’s workforce was the single biggest improvement ever in reducing traffic issues. Even so, impacts on residential streets and Leeman Highway continued, enough so that a truly historic meeting between BIW, the City of Bath, Bath Police, Maine State Police, the DOT and South End residents was successfully convened to pursue a comprehensive solution. Unfortunately, that meeting was an immediate nonstarter when BIW opened the discussion by asking how anyone could be sure that the daily 3:30 vehicular free-for-all on Route 1 was actually BIW employees. End of discussion.

That was nearly a quarter of a century ago. GD/BIW corporate culture is now light years improved in accommodation of its host municipality. The currently proposed Washington Street Corridor redesign should therefore build upon recent history’s demonstration that Bath’s livability and BIW’s economic viability can coexist to mutual benefit. BIW’s recent Corridor presentation to Bath’s City Council indeed stressed their goals aimed at creating “less pressure on the neighborhoods,” yet its present design to seemingly have Weeks Street become yet another Richardson Street traffic burden plainly doesn’t square with that stated intent. Bath hasn’t sufficient resources to police traffic issues as they already exist and will unlikely be able to reign in any additional BIW exodus turmoil, which BIW has traditionally disavowed as its responsibility once workers are outside BIW boundaries. Any increased residential impact is heading in the wrong direction both infrastructure-wise and carbon footprint-wise.

Twenty-five years of periodic traffic studies and costly consulting still finds BIW and Bath faced with the same dilemma of how to best exit BIW’s day shift. An employee parking garage solution has repeatedly been championed and then abandoned, most recently because of concern that no one really wants to be trapped in a parking garage emptying at the same time. Time has always been the core problem.

Incoming shifts have never been problematic, only the 3:30 mass exodus. If workers left intermittently, as they do when arriving, traffic impact would be similarly lessened. Traffic infrastructure and vehicle numbers are the same coming and going. More available parking isn’t the issue but rather everyone punching out at the same time.

BIW mandates that its vendors only use Washington Street. No cross-street residential impact. That restriction would apply to all traffic by making all cross streets one-way west to east between High Street/207 and Washington Street. One-way cross streets would near completely remedy existing South End gridlock. High Street and Richardson Street impact would cease. The loss of High Street access could be offset by making Washington Street’s two opposing lanes one way only at 3:30. Widely utilized elsewhere, “reversible lane management” typically employs overhead traffic lights and lighted street signs for driver notification. That said, anyone familiar with Bath well knows the current ins and outs of navigating the South End during shift change. No signage of any kind needed.

The simplest solution would be to leave everything as is and even allow BIW to add additional single-passenger parking, but change the timing and thereby the volume of traffic exiting the South End at shift-end, a concept called “staggered release” where BIW’ workforce would no longer depart all together at the same time. If BIW could release its workforce in two or three stages, possibly determined by parking lot number or parking garage level, the traffic load on Washington Street would be reduced by half or one-third at each interval.

All of the above “answers” have been championed in various planning workshops over the years and then not acted upon, either by BIW or the city. Before investing in this current Corridor design, maybe its time to have another historic state, city and corporate roundtable. BIW is soliciting public comment at two Maine Maritime Museum meetings, on April 28 and May 5, both at 5:30 p.m.

Gary Anderson is a Bath resident.