New Traffic Light In Bangor To Help With Ohio Street Detour

On Facebook yesterday, Bangor City Councilor Ben Sprague shared a photo and post about a new traffic light. Normally this wouldn't be that big a deal, but it's helping out with the whole Ohio Street bridge repair/detour. Currently, folks can't cross the bridge over I-95 on Ohio Street.

The new light is located at the corner of Westland and Union streets, and will likely remain there until August/September when they open the bridge back up to one lane of traffic. At that point, traffic will be able to cross the bridge without a detour.

At the moment, the detours to cut from Ohio to Union are on Westland, with the light, and on 16th St., without one. The roads in between are closed on the Union St. side, so should you accidentally make a turn up any of those roads from Ohio St., you'll be making a U turn once you hit that "Road Closed" sign at the end of it! And your best bet (as someone who travels that road daily) if you want to actually regain access to Union St. is to take that Westland detour. The light is key! Because if you miss it and opt for the 16th St. detour, you will end up sitting for quite some time, waiting for some kind soul to let you in!

Sprague also shed some light on all the noise that folks have been chirping about on social media. A friend of mine posted last week on Facebook about the hours that they were keeping for construction. As Ben pointed out in his post, it's necessary to be doing the work at night because day work would back traffic up dangerously.

However, he implied that the noisiest parts of the job should be over by April.The workers are trying their best to limit the noisiest of the noisiest between 8:30pm and 10:30pm, and doing the quieter work during the overnight hours.

One of the residents in that area actually reached out to the Department of Transportation about the issues neighbors have had with noise levels. Nathan Pukay,
Transportation Engineer with the Maine DOT's Bridge Program, responded to the inquiry with some details about which phases of the project will be coming up, and just how noisy these activities will be.

"Just to provide some info and anticipated night work and durations:

Shielding Removal – 4 days – Scheduled to begin 3/16 (Low noise)

Beam Removal – 4 days – Scheduled to begin 3/20 (Moderate noise)

Pier Demo – 4 days – Scheduled to begin 4/9 (Moderate to high noise)

Set Pier Columns – 2 days – Scheduled to begin 5/11

Set Pier Cap – 1 day – Scheduled to begin 5/13

Mill/Overlay Northbound – 8 days – Scheduled to begin 6/30

Mill/Overlay Southbound – 8 days – Scheduled to begin 7/13"

So there is some relief in sight for all the noise in the neighborhoods.

Here's the one thing to always keep in mind during this... The bridge in question is very old, and is NOT in good shape. Many bridges throughout Maine are downright dangerous and in need of repairs. And this bridge is one of them. So hang tight friends. It won't be that much longer.