BRUNSWICK

Starting with a forum today, town officials will take input and ponder how to reconfigure downtown traffic movement and present two concepts for changes to Maine Street and elsewhere.

Today’s forum is the next step for the town’s Master Plan Implementation Committee, which has incorporated into its plans the work of urban planning experts who visited in November of last year.

“The committee has selected two of the five recommendations for improving movement on Maine Street in Brunswick and it’s time to hear what other people think,” said councilor Margot Knight, who serves as chairwoman of the master plan committee.

Sketches of how lanes on Maine Street might be reconfigured and where raised crosswalks might be installed will be on display today.

During the November visit, consultants provided town officials with a slate of recommendations, including: opening Pleasant Street to two-way traffic, adding traffic circles at three downtown locations and slowing the average speed of downtown traffic.

“The concept is counter-intuitive to how we’ve been brought up in America,” Project for Public Spaces consultant Gary Toth said in November. “We have been trained that when there is a congestion problem, you need to make lanes wider, straighter and faster.”

Faster speeds don’t always mean shorter travel times, Toth said, comparing traffic flow to a funnel.

“If you take a slower time pouring, you would fill the cup faster,” Toth said. “When we speed up our roads, we’re dumping traffic into the pinch point of the funnel too fast.”

Today’s forum for public input will be the first of many in the coming months, according to a press release from the town.

The forum will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Hawthorne School, 48 Federal St.

For more information, contact Julie Erdman at the Brunswick Department of Planning and Development at 725-6660.

dfishell@timesrecord.com