enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Activists like Erik Osborn favor spending the federal dollars on extending passenger rail service to Brunswick, now No. 8 on a preliminary list of spending priorities developed by Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Rick Michaud is the Saco city administrator and also heads the regional transportation committee that is seeking $50 million in federal funds.

enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Widening I-295 through Portland is No. 4 on a preliminary list of spending priorities developed by Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee – which represents 15 municipalities from Biddeford to Freeport.

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WHO'S WHO

MEMBERS OF the High-Priority Projects Committee are:

– RICK MICHAUD, Saco city administrator, committee chair

– MIKE BOBINSKY, Portland public works director

– JOHN BUBIER, Biddeford city manager

– DALE DOUGHTY, Maine Department of Transportation

– DAVE COLE, Gorham town manager

– DAN JELLIS, Yarmouth town engineer

– DONNA LARSON, Freeport town planner

– MIKE MCGOVERN, Cape Elizabeth town manager

– TOM MEYERS, South Portland transportation and waterfront manager

– GARY WILLIAMS, Maine Department of Transportation

A pot of roughly $50 million in federal money will likely be available in two years to be spent on one to three big transportation projects in Greater Portland.

The question about where to spend the money – which regional planners have wrestled with for months with no public involvement ... has emerged as a hot issue.

A regional planning committee has drafted a list of 10 projects, with the goal of winnowing the list down to two or three projects to send to the federal government in 2009. Some of the top projects include adding additional lanes on I-295 in Portland and replacing the Veterans Bridge

This is the first time that the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation Committee – which represents 15 municipalities between Biddeford and Freeport – has gone after these kind of funds, which are earmarks in the federal government's five-year transportation spending plan.

For the past five months, a group made up of town managers, planners, engineers and public transportation directors has been quietly developing a priority list. The plan was for the committee to seek public input once it selected the top three projects to send to Maine's congressional delegation for funding. Everything was proceeding through the usual bureaucratic channels until September, when Portland transportation activist Christian McNeil discovered the list by reading the minutes of one of the committee's meetings.

McNeil posted the list on his blog, rightsofway.blogspot.com, which focuses on local transportation and land-use issues. He also put it on the e-mail list serving the Portland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

The League of Young Voters – a Portland political action committee that is active in city politics –then decided to make the issue a top priority.

The group last week held a forum about the issue that was attended by 33 people, mostly young adults, Portland Mayor Ed Suslovic, three city councilors, Rep. Boyd Marley, D-Portland, the House chairman of the Legislature's Transportation Committee, as well as two television crews and three newspaper reporters.

Two other groups are also now involved, the Portland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and Portland Greens Streets, a citizens group that gives "green commuters" discounts at participating Portland businesses.

PACTS – which is not used to getting much public attention – has now received more than 20 letters, all expressing the view that the priority list is weighed too heavily in favor of increasing highway capacity and gives short shrift to alternatives, such as extending passenger rail service from Portland to Brunswick.

The letter writers are particularly opposed to the notion of adding lanes to Interstate 295 through Portland.

The $30 million project, which would effectively widen the highway between Exit 5 and Exit 7 in Portland, is now ranked as No. 4 on the priority list.

"The idea of widening that awful highway should be laughed out of the room," Patrick Banks, a member of the League of Young Voters steering committee, wrote the planners. "Seriously, this list doesn't exactly include a lot of choice for the teeming masses of commuters in southern Maine who would much rather not have to drive their cars to and from work every single day."

The list illustrates a "disconnect" between the goals of regional transportation planners and aggressive state policies that are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, said Erik Osborn, chairman of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee.

"We are designing transportation systems that will generate more greenhouse gases in the future," he said, "and make it more challenging to meet targets we are setting."

Osborn, 33, commutes to work by bicycle within the city of Portland. While widening I-295 will make it easier for more people to drive into the city, he said, the additional traffic on the city's narrow and congested streets...