BELFAST - After several passes, committee recommendations for pedestrian improvements and bike lanes on a section of Main Street that has historically been kinder to cars and trucks got the green light from the City Council on Tuesday.

The Pedestrian Hiking and Biking Committee has been searching for low-cost ways to help walkers and bicyclists safely travel the disappearing sidewalks, busy intersections, dead-end crosswalk and roads with ambiguous lane markings between the downtown center and Route 3 commercial district on either side of the bypass.

Past proposals, including a pedestrian crossing island in the vicinity of Alto Street, were debated and ultimately rejected by Council as too pricey or intrusive. On Tuesday committee representative Glenn Montgomery and transportation consultant Tom Errico of T.Y. Lin made three recommendations that were approved by the Council.

• Connecting the crosswalk at Market Street to the parking lot at Belfast Plaza (Family Dollar, Sun Tan City) – a partially abandoned crosswalk currently ends abruptly at a landscaped area outside the shopping plaza. The committee proposed cutting through the landscaping to extend the crosswalk into the plaza parking lot. A representative of plaza owner Belfast Holdings approved of the idea.

• New caution signs at Waldo Avenue/Main Street intersection – the Council approved adding signs alerting drivers to the pedestrian crossing on Waldo Avenue. The committee picked this intersection because of the amount of traffic along with nearby entrances to Belfast Plaza and Tarratine Hall and the intersection with Cedar Street just to the west.

• New bike lanes from Market Street to Reny’s Plaza - after some discussion about the cost of striping and the width of the roadway at various points, the Council agreed to add 5-foot-wide bike lanes with an additional 2-foot buffer zone on both sides of Main Street. The bike lane would eliminate some informal parking that Councilors observed outside an apartment building near Congress Street.

The Council supported the three proposals subject to an engineering study to determine cost and feasibility.

Errico recommended two other projects that he saw as priorities for future improvements: adding pedestrian signals at the intersection of Starrett Drive and Main Street (none exist today) and improving the pedestrian crossing at Alto Street, which he described as “the link” between the pedestrian friendly downtown and the commercial area west of the rise that were designed to accommodate drivers foremost.

“They’re not cheap necessarily, but those are two items I would think would be important,” Errico said.

Councilor Nancy Hamilton asked Montgomery and the committee to turn their attention to a section of Swan Lake Avenue near Goose River Apartments an Goose River Grocery. Hamilton and Councilor Mike Hurley have raised concerns at previous meetings that the 45 mph roadway poses dangers for elderly residents of the congregate care apartments and residents north of the narrow bridge over Goose River who cross Swan Lake Avenue to get to the grocery store. 

“There are people living in mobile homes who are not biking for health or walking for recreation,” she said. “Those are people who are desperately trying to get places and sometimes I think they are being overlooked.”

A changing of the harbor guard

Outside of the occasional political battle, longstanding members of the city’s volunteer committees have mostly been allowed to keep their posts as long as they remain interested. On Tuesday, the City Council took a different tack. Denying an application by a 14-year member of the Harbor Advisory Committee in favor of appointing a newcomer.

Openings on the committee of five regular members and one alternate, drew four applicants competing for one vacancy and two expired seats, held by recent one-term member Robert Winslow and veteran committee member Alex Allmayer-Beck.

The Council voted unanimously to reappoint Winslow along with two other first time members: Dennis Trefry and David Carlson. Those who spoke about the decision not to reappoint Allmayer-Beck acknowledged his work on the committee and the value of his experience but expressed a desire to see some turnover on the advisory group. Trefry was made an alternate, while committee alternate Daniel Miller was promoted to regular member.

The Council reappointed longtime Parks and Recreation Commission member Cathy Gleeson to fill one of two open positions on the committee, and appointed David Aldridge to fill one of two openings on the Airport Advisory Committee.
 

In other business, the Council:

• Approved the 2014-15 city budget. City Manager Joe Slocum said the current mil rate of 20.8 (dollars per $1,000 of property value) for Belfast property owners will rise to something over 21, though he had not calculated that figure. The increase is largely due to increases in the school district appropriation along with some increase from the city side that Slocum attributed to a decrease in municipal revenue sharing, the hire of two new police officers and an increase in health insurance rates. County taxes remained flat this year.

• Heard an update on the RSU 20 withdrawal movement from Councilor Eric Sanders. The school board is expected to review withdrawal plans at its next meeting, July 8. Currently five municipalities of the former SAD 34, including Belfast, are seeking a November vote on withdrawing together. Northport is pursuing a town-run school.

• Reappointed Tod Rosenberg as the city’s Code Enforcement Officer, Plumbing, Electric and Building Inspector, and appointed Assistant City Planner Sadie Lloyd as Assistant Code Enforcement Officer.

• Heard an update on the Harbor Walk and Downtown Revitalization projects from City Planner Wayne Marshal,l who said the city recently received confirmation that it would get the last of the promised grant funding from the Federal Highway Administration and Maine DOT. The Downtown Revitalization project, which would overhaul Front Street is expected to start later this year and continue in 2015, he said.

• Looked at a new bulb and lens configuration for new lighting in a redevelopment area downtown. A test light fixture with LED bulbs has been installed temporarily outside City Hall for several weeks. City Planner Wayne Marshall noted that the clear glass had been replaced with frosted glass and asked councilors for their opinions. Several indicated a preference for something closer to existing downtown street lights, which are not as bright and cast a warmer light. Some councilors expressed resignation on the heels of debates over lights on the Harbor Walk. “It looks like a UFO,” said Councilor Eric Sanders. “If that’s the way we’re going in society, I don’t like it at all.”

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com