YARMOUTH — Motorists in Yarmouth will soon have to dodge significantly fewer orange traffic cones. After four years of constant road construction, the Interstate 295 bridge replacement project in Yarmouth is essentially complete.

The Maine Department of Transportation began work in December of 2021 and the project is expected to wrap up as scheduled this November. With the completed removal and replacement of the south and northbound bridges near Exit 17, repaving U.S. Route 1 underneath the bridge, and the extension of the Beth Condon Memorial Pathway, the project is largely wrapped up, save for a few finishing touches.

Due to minor work that was added to the project this summer, Maine DOT granted the contractor CPM Constructors a 30-day extension until Dec. 1, according to DOT Marketing Specialist Brittany Roberts. Over the next few weeks, the contractor will reinstall signs, finish electrical work and add flashing pedestrian crossing lights at the crosswalk across the exit ramp.

The two bridges on I-295 were replaced due to age and wear — hairline cracks on the decks of the bridges, rust along the beams and bearings, fracturing of the concrete surface and exposed rebar on the piers and columns. The project was funded by a $27.6 million federal grant at no cost to Yarmouth.

The project took four years to complete mainly due to the need to maintain the flow of interstate traffic, said Yarmouth Town Engineer Steve Johnson. Contractors first built two new bridges alongside the existing ones before redirecting vehicles to make way for the removal of the two old bridges.

Yarmouth’s stretch of I-295 can see up to 90,000 vehicles per day in the summer. The town is already familiar with how issues on the interstate can impact other roads within Yarmouth.

“We see it every time there’s an accident on either northbound or southbound. Route 1 basically floods with traffic of people trying to bypass that,” Johnson said. “So it’s a big impact for the town to ensure that those bridges are a service to keep the through traffic going.”

The bridge replacement project also served as an opportunity to enhance a local asset, the Beth Condon Memorial Pathway. Maine DOT and contractors extended the shared-used path that runs alongside Route 1 from where it ended south of Exit 17 up to the state’s visitor information center in Yarmouth. LaFlamme said the town is planning a celebration unveiling the path extension sometime this spring, though it is already open for use.

“I think it’s a great testament to Yarmouth’s commitment to safe accessibility for everybody,” said Yarmouth Town Manager Scott LaFlamme. “It’s just continuing to build on that tradition of safe and accessible connections between neighborhoods, between commercial corridors, between work and school.”

The pathway was created in 2006 in memory of Yarmouth teenager Beth Condon, who was struck and killed by a drunken driver while walking along Route 1. Extending the pathway up through the bridge project allows pedestrians and cyclists to go underneath the I-295 bridge in a wide and protected lane. That stretch of Route 1 is a narrow and “scary” area for pedestrians and cyclists, said Colin Durrant, chair of Yarmouth’s Bike and Pedestrian Committee.

“It’s a huge safety improvement and huge accessibility improvement,” said Durrant.

This path project fits into a larger vision of enhancing walking and biking mobility across Yarmouth. Town staff envision the extension of the pathway as one of three projects that will eventually create a route from Yarmouth’s southern border in Cumberland up to Freeport. On the north end of the new trail, Maine DOT is currently working on replacing Cousin’s River Bridge on Route 1. As part of this project, the town secured PACTS funding for Maine DOT to also construct a shared-use path starting near Garmin building up until the Freeport town line. This proposed section would start from where the new section of the path extension ends, albeit on the other side of Route 1. LaFlamme said this second path project had a “multiyear horizon.” 

On the southern end of the Beth Condon Memorial Pathway, the town anticipates more distant upgrades to I-295 Exit 15 to include plans to extend the pathway along Route 1 to the border of Cumberland.

As pathway extension fits into a larger vision for pedestrian and cyclist mobility across Yarmouth, Durrant said he is glad that these forward-thinking local projects are being incorporated into other roadway maintenance projects by the state and town.

“This is exactly the time to make these sort of generational improvements that’ll … for decades to come define how people can get through that space, and this is the time to make those changes, when they’re making a big project like that,” said Durrant.

“This was a really positive outcome of this project,” he said.