Testimony of Nancy Smith, CEO of GrowSmart Maine In Support of LD 1020 An Act to Repeal the Laws Authorizing the Construction of a Multi-Lane Highway Connector to Gorham and to Return the Land Purchased under those laws to the Prior Property Owners
April 3, 2025
Senator Nangle, Representative Crafts, and Honorable Members of the Joint Standing Committee on Transportation.
My name is Nancy Smith, I live in Ellsworth, and I am the CEO of GrowSmart Maine. We are a statewide non-partisan non-profit organization helping communities navigate change in alignment with smart growth.
We partner with Build Maine to co-host a transparent crowd-sourcing of policy proposals that has drawn together over a hundred people from across Maine and beyond. Policy Action 2025 follows Policy Action 2023 from the 131st Legislature. Each session we strive, “to address barriers to and create incentives for equitable, sustainable growth and development that strengthens downtowns and villages of all sizes while pulling development pressure away from productive and open natural areas.”
GrowSmart advocates for transportation policy that ties in land use, housing, environmental and economic goals to contribute to a sense of community vitality. This bill presents key strategies to achieve this goal and is a part of Policy Action 2025. I’ve attached a copy of the current bill listing for your information.
When the Maine Turnpike Authority (MTA) announced the proposed route for this multi-lane highway expansion from Gorham to Portland, we announced our opposition that acknowledged the need to address the traffic congestion in Gorham and surrounding towns and the consequences of a five mile, $300 million highway.
Simply put, any short-term benefits that might come from this project would not offset the permanent ecological, economic, and community damage it will do. Our position remains the same, as outlined in this opinion piece published in the Press Herald this week (also attached).
Scarborough and Westbrook, two of the five towns that had originally requested MTA look into solving their traffic congestion problem, recently withdrew their support for the project in response to strident community opposition. These Council votes represent a meaningful evolution in how communities think about solving their traffic problems, and make it clear that more lanes of highway is no longer seen as the solution. To their credit, MTA listened and has pulled back from the project.
However, highway projects like these have a tendency to stick around. Transportation advocates have nicknamed them “zombie projects” for their propensity to resurface when opponents return to living their lives.
Passage of LD 1020 would shut down this zombie project finally and completely, protect Smiling Hill Farm and the natural trout populations of nearby Red Brook from this threat, and ensure that future transportation and economic investments offer long term and cost effective solutions. Productive farmland, busy village centers and downtowns, local places to work and enjoy the outdoors are the core of communities where people feel safe, that they belong, and that they can thrive. Gorham and surrounding towns deserve nothing less than that and passage of LD 1020 will go a long way toward that vision.