Long Creek Bike/Ped Bridge
Challenge
Three large infrastructure projects were forming a "perfect storm" in the communities of Portland and South Portland. The advent of a runway expansion at the Portland International Jetport, the construction of the new Veterans Bridge and a proposed redesign of Exit 4 of I-295 were understandably being treated as completely separate projects by the communities.
The South Portland Land Trust took a holistic look at the projects and realized that they presented a one-time opportunity to address a decades old problem — that walking and cycling to the Maine Mall area of South Portland from either Portland or other parts of South Portland was inherently dangerous. The new designs did nothing to improve the situation. (In fact, the initial design for the Veterans Bridge did not accommodate any pedestrian or cycling use.)
Solutions
The South Portland City Council hired 19 Oaks to forge relationships with and get approval from nine different entities: The FAA, the City of Portland, the City of South Portland, MaineDOT, Maine DEP, Brick Hill housing development, Bike Coalition of Maine, Go Maine, Grow Smart Maine, PACTS and the Portland Jetport.
The kicker: 19 Oaks was given seven weeks to present the results of a preliminary feasibility study for bike/pedestrian passage (including various potential bridge crossings) and achieve 100% approval from all the entities named above.
Result
19 Oaks achieved the aggressive goal presented by the South Portland City Council. Our work ensured that a discrete, protected bike/pedestrian lane was built into the Veterans Bridge and that the bridge was designed to accommodate the future advent of an adjacent bike/pedestrian bridge over Long Creek to enable cyclists and pedestrians to safely travel from the areas previously described to and from the Maine Mall area (which at the time of the project had 128,000 people visiting daily to work or shop).
Although the funding has yet to be realized for the keystone of the project (the bridge itself), our collaborative efforts ensured that the corridor is part of the areas long-term transportation plan.
Members of Our Team to Participate
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