Edgecomb Selectman Stuart Smith still wants to turn Edgecomb's River Road into Route 215 from Boothbay to Newcastle, even though a state transportation official says the change would not get the road better care.

Traffic, not a road's name, determines the level of care, according to Peter Coughlan, director of the Maine Department of Transportation's community services division. Although the state is responsible for culvert replacements and other maintenance work on River Road, the relatively low traffic volume makes it a low priority for other types of projects. Changing the name to Route 215 would be “irrelevant” to the care issue, Coughlan said in a November 9 interview. “Route numbers are just for directions ... and do not mean anything else.”

But Smith isn't so sure the change is pointless. He wants the road in better shape for ambulances to get to Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta, should the emergency room at St. Andrews Hospital close as planned. He said the increased traffic could make the road a higher priority for funding.

However, increased traffic wouldn't necessarily translate to funding for the road. If the volume went up, the road might rise in priority, where it would then sit among many others that could also use some help, Coughlan said. “There are thousands of miles of … roads in worse shape than that one,” some of which are also ambulance routes, he said.

“Is the road going to get funded quicker? My guess would be probably not,” Coughlan said.

River Road isn't the only way to Miles. In fact, Routes 1 and 27 will be the “principal route for ambulances” off the peninsula, due to River Road's wintertime issues of “shading, many curves (and) icing,” Lincoln County Planner Robert Faunce wrote in an October 26 email to MDOT. “It may be that St. Andrews … should be responsible for costs of enhanced winter maintenance of Route 27,” he wrote. If so, Faunce stated he would need to come up with an estimate on those costs.

But MDOT maintenance staff said neither Route 27 nor Route 1 will get more wintertime attention post-St. Andrews. “We do not anticipate making any changes to our level of service based on the St. Andrews Hospital closing … as (both) roads are maintained to our higher standard now,” Michael Burns of MDOT's maintenance office said.

Smith acknowledged ambulances could use Routes 27 and 1, but that way takes longer to get to Miles, he said. “River Road is shorter, more direct and faster,” he said. In addition, sometimes accidents shut down Route 27 during winter storms, he said. “What happens when you can't get through? River Road gives us an alternative to get off the peninsula.”

He and the rest of the St. Andrews Task Force will explore options regarding River Road, but “right now, we have other, more pressing things to get done,” Smith said. “It's not the appropriate time to pull the state into the conversation and try to push for that re-designation and better maintenance,” he said.

Smith first mentioned the idea to his fellow Edgecomb selectmen in September. Then he discussed it via email with state transportation officials, who offered some guidance.

“(I)f you think that reclassifying it to a major collector will improve its maintenance or capital improvement chances, that likely would not happen,” Coughlan wrote to Smith. Instead, the state's new Municipal Partnership Initiative is “realistically the only way to see better improvements beyond normal maintenance activities,” Coughlan continued.

Under the initiative, towns chip in with the state on road projects. Smith didn't rule it out, but he said Edgecomb previously backed out of plans for another project with the state after the state kept upping the local share.

“We won't take anything off the table, but we're going to be cautious,” he said.

Susan Johns can be reached at 844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.