Cottage Road Improvements
Sebago Technics was retained by the City of South Portland in 2017 as part of a bicycle and pedestrian committee tasked with completing an evaluation of Cottage Road in response to resident concerns surrounding vehicular travel speeds, and a need for additional bicycle and pedestrian facilities.
Location
South Portland, Maine
Sector
Municipal
Services
- Land Surveying
- Civil Engineering
- Traffic Engineering
- Planning & Permitting
Completed
2024
Project overview
The planning portion included obtaining and analyzing existing crash data, a cooperative speed study with the Police Department, a transit review, and documentation of on-street parking. Sebago worked with the Bicycle Coalition of Maine to implement temporary curb extensions utilizing bollards to trial traffic calming efforts along the corridor. Based on the results of this trial, concept plans and estimates were completed by Sebago for the City’s planning use.
project Details
Improving local road, bicycle, and pedestrian safety
The results of the planning efforts led to the City obtaining federal funding to complete preliminary engineering and right-of-way as two Locally Administered Projects (LAP). The first project included a mill and overlay from Highland Avenue to the Cape Elizabeth town line and the second was a pedestrian improvements project from Sawyer Street to Angell Avenue. The Cottage Road pedestrian improvements project was originally scoped to include new sidewalk and curb extensions from Pine Street to Sawyer Street and curb extensions at Elsmere Avenue. Given the project timeline to construction for the previous two projects, the City retained Sebago to provide construction documents and administration and oversight on those portions of the project early in 2020.
The remainder of the project scope, which transformed Cottage Road from Sawyer Street to Angell Avenue to a multimodal corridor, focused on the following implementations:
- Traffic calming through reduced lane widths and curb extensions with decorative bollards
- Pedestrian accommodations and visibility, including new concrete sidewalks constructed for ADA accessibility, curb extensions to shorten crosswalk lengths and provide improved pedestrian visibility around on-street parking, and implementation of Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs)
- Bicycle facilities through shared vehicular and bicycle lanes with sharrows and new signage
- Traffic signal modifications at Sawyer Street to include retroreflective backplates, new pedestrian signal equipment, detection, and timings
- Intersection realignment at Pillsbury Street to correct existing crash patterns
- Access management through the corridor to minimize conflict points
The total project encompassed approximately $1.7 million in improvements and was completed in the summer of 2024.
Explore related projects
See how we transform plans into impactful places across the region.
