Many residents and town officials in Bow want to grow the area known as Bow Mills into an economic driver, a place to attract businesses and create something the community doesn’t really have – a downtown.
In 2017, voters approved a zoning amendment that changed several acres of land in the Bow Mills area and the Interstate 89 and 93 interchange to mixed-use zoning. The support was clear with about 75 percent of voters backing the change. The land was previously zoned for only residential or institutional use.
The state Department of Transportation has other plans. Officials there want to redesign the I-89 and I-93 junction to improve traffic flow as part of the I-93 widening project.
A major part of that project involves installing new local roads in the Bow Mills area that will carry southbound traffic on I-89 trying to reach Route 3A. Under the DOT’s current proposal, the continuation of I-89 south to Route 3A that is there now will be removed to eliminate weaving issues at the interchange.
Town officials have issues with those plans, and Bow Community Development Director Matt Taylor says it’s a challenge to lure in business when those details haven’t been ironed out, and they may not be for some time.
“We’ve been going back and forth on this trying to find out if (DOT) actually took this into consideration,” Taylor said. “They never clearly said, ‘Yes we did’ or, ‘No we didn’t.’ This letter I got is pretty clear that they didn’t.”
The letter Taylor points to arrived in his inbox on Oct. 26 and addresses several questions he asked DOT Project Manager Don Lyford in an email on July 31. In his email, Taylor reminded DOT of the area’s new zoning and said the department’s traffic analysis did not account for it.
In his response, Lyford wrote that the modeling for the project was completed before the area was rezoned. He added, “A quick analysis shows this increase in traffic can be accommodated” with the two traffic lights proposed for the area.
Taylor reiterated this concern at DOT headquarters in Concord on Wednesday during the project’s first formal public hearing. Bow Selectman Harry Judd also voiced his concerns with the plan, including access from I-89 South to Route 3A and the rezoning of Bow Mills.
Town residents attending Wednesday’s forum are rather tepid about the interstate project, as well.
Faye and Ray Johnson have lived in Bow for more than 50 years and have seen the interstate system in the area go through various iterations, including the construction of I-93 and its connection to I-89 when that highway was completed in the late 1960s.
“We think every time they do it, they make it worse,” said Faye. “They’re going to be (cars and trucks) turning right in the middle of Bow Mills where we should be doing our business and not be bothered about it.
Another resident, Mike Presseau, is worried about large trucks using town roads to access Route 3A.
“The truckers normally go straight to 3A and then take a right and go down to the truck stop,” Presseau said. “Now they have to get off (I-89) at Logging Hill, bang a left, go up to the next intersection, bang a right. So what happens when there are three or four trucks? They’re backing into the interstate from Logging Hill.”
While residents and town officials critiqued DOT’s plan, they also recognize the need for it. Traffic moves fast in all directions at the I-89 to I-93 interchange as drivers maneuver between each other to reach their destination.
“You practically can kill yourself trying to go from Logging Hill onto I-93,” Faye Johnson said. “Once you’re on there, you’ll kill yourself trying to go to 3A.”
The special legislative committee overseeing the I-93 widening project, which reaches all the way to the I-393 interchange at Exit 15, collected testimony from the Concord officials as well as residents at the forum last week.
If the committee approves the DOT’s proposal, designed with the consultation firm McFarland and Johnson, it can move to a final design phase, which is needed before the $268 million project can get all the funding in the state’s 10-year highway plan.
But residents in Bow hope some of their questions get answers first.
“If they can’t do better than what they’ve got for Bow,” Faye Johnson said, “I’d rather they leave it alone.”
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3321, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)