enlarge 2008 Press Herald file

One reason behind the plan to build a new toll plaza is the age of the current structure, which had an expected life span of 25 years when it was built in 1969. The broken concrete in the E-ZPass lane above is one example of the deterioration.

BENEFITS OF MOVING TOLL PLAZA

According to the Maine Turnpike Authority, the benefits of a relocated plaza will include:

Highway-speed lanes. New electronic technology will allow motorists with E-ZPass to travel through the toll plaza without slowing down, adding to convenience and efficiency.

Increased safety. The current plaza is located on a curve and at the bottom of a hill and has poor sight lines for drivers, often causing them to end up bunched in the center lanes. The new plaza is expected to be on a straight stretch of highway.

Reduced noise. Highway-speed tolling means less starting and stopping.

Reduced operational costs. The four high-speed lanes (two in each direction) operated by electronic sensors are expected to make the plaza cheaper to operate and maintain.

PROBLEMS WITH PLAZA

THE CURRENT York toll plaza, built in 1969, was expected to last 25 years. It was built on wetlands, so parts of the plaza are sinking about an inch a year.

IT CANNOT accommodate technology advances such as highway-speed toll collection, which lets E-ZPass customers pay tolls at 55 to 65 mph.

Its location near an interchange causes problems with merging traffic.

The effort to build a new toll plaza on the Maine Turnpike in York has run into its first organized opposition.

A group of York residents Sunday launched a lobbying drive to convince Maine Turnpike Authority officials to redraw their list of proposed sites for a new plaza.

More than a dozen Chase's Pond Road residents are asking state legislators to help them keep a new toll plaza from moving in next door to their centuries-old neighborhood and the town's water treatment plant.

"They're taking out our neighborhood," said Michael Walek, who has lived in the area for 10 years.

Walek said two of the toll booth plans under consideration would affect his neighborhood and could slash the value of his home.

Turnpike authority officials are considering four locations as prospective sites of a new toll plaza that would replace the one that stands just north of Exit 7 in York.

The toll plaza was built in 1969 and was expected to last 25 years. It was built on wetlands and is sinking at a rate of about an inch a year, so turnpike officials hope to replace the booths by 2011.

The authority held a sparsely attended public hearing on the four prospective replacement sites -- all of them are located in York, just miles north of the existing plaza -- late last month.

Authority officials planned to select a site from the list by May and begin the $35 million project next year.

Each of the four proposals would cost at least one York resident his or her home.

Two of the four -- at miles 8.7 and 9.9 on the turnpike -- would pave rural areas around Chase's Pond Road and place tollbooths next to the York Water District. Walek said that's a recipe for disaster.

He questioned what would happen in the event of a crash at the toll plaza that involved a truck carrying chemicals or a chlorine leak at the treatment plant during peak summer traffic -- when motorists wait in lines of 20 or more vehicles to pay tolls.

"You certainly couldn't evacuate a backed-up highway like we get in the summertime," Walek said.

Walek and Todd Bezold held a meeting at their home Sunday afternoon to organize opponents of the two proposals.

They said they plan to pressure state legislators to have both of the proposed sites stricken from the turnpike authority's list.

Dan Paradee, spokesman for the turnpike authority, said the four prospective sites came from an initial list of 16 that ranged as far south as Kittery and as far north as Wells.

Some of the areas, however, were cut from the list for engineering reasons, Paradee said.

The current plaza is near an interchange on a curve at the bottom of a hill, which means motorists have to hit their brakes and have trouble seeing all lanes as they approach the tollbooths. The new plaza has to be located on a straight section of highway at the crest of a hill, away from interstate on- and off-ramps, Paradee said.

Paradee said turnpike officials are just starting to weigh each prospective site's effect beyond what homes would be razed.

"We're not placing them out there saying they're not going to have any impact at all -- they're all going to have some impact," he said Sunday.

Paradee said the possible relocation of the toll plaza near a water plant is "certainly something we need to investigate."

York residents have won battles with the turnpike authority before. In 1994, residents complained that a set of rumble strips -- grooves in the pavement -- installed near the tollbooths caused too much noise.

The rumble strips were designed to startle weary motorists and prevent crashes, but neighbors complained the noise from the rumble strips also kept them from sleeping at night. Turnpike authority officials eventually redesigned the rumble strips to make them less noisy.

Walek's group is primarily concerned about stopping...