[music playing]
Jonathon McDade: The character of this whole corridor, the
Gateway 1 Corridor, is the essence of, you know, life in Maine and what people picture.
And that's why people want to come here. They want to see the picturesque scenes, the New
England communities. And what's nice here is you -- there's a string of them. The report
goes into this -- in some aspects it's like a string of pearls.
Jennifer Merritt: Everybody has to drive on Route 1, as well
as the big semis. [horn honking]
Jim Upham: Route 1 is a public resource. It serves a
lot of people, a lot of communities.
Jennifer Merritt: It's the spine of commerce. It's the spine
of commerce. It is. [music]
Mary Kate Reny: The five key things that Reny's needs to really
address and always pay attention to are completely aligned with what Gateway 1's corridor action
plan is trying to do, and that is ease of access.
Don White: When I was a boy, Dad used to drive me from
the Boston area to Blue Hill, Maine. We used to drive along Route 1, and in those days
the road wound through little, small towns. And some of that has been bypassed. We'd like
not to see it happen to any more communities. We'd like to just keep it the way it is.
Kat Beaudoin: The more development is strung out along the
highway, the more pressure there is on Maine DOT to introduce bypass options, which are
hugely controversial, hugely disruptive, hugely expensive.
Jim Upham: What Bath does to Route 1 affects people up
and down the corridor. What Rockland and Belfast, what they do with their land uses on Route
1 affect all the other communities, and if we don't work together, there are going to
be good stretches of Route 1 in 30 years, and there are going to be some very bad stretches
of Route 1.
Sara Bradford: We want to grow, but we want to manage our
growth so that we're not overwhelmed by what has happened in some of the towns further
south of us.
Kat Beaudoin: Instead of Maine DOT deciding what the answer
was, instead we rolled way back and we said, "Okay what is the problem from your perspective,
towns?" We said, "We're going to listen to you."
Mary Kate Reny: It's really common for a business owner in
a nice, you know, clustered location like Main Street just to focus on getting that
customer in the door. Our customer numbers are down, and I do think that has to do with
how we're handling growth.
Kat Beaudoin: The planning process that we undertook, which
was very different because it put land use at the top instead of transportation at the top.
Chris Osgood: A lot of us have learned that what's good
for the corridor actually really benefits our town, and that's not to dismiss our own
town's specific needs. It's that we actually have a better chance of getting our specific
needs met by having something that works well for the whole corridor. This process of creating
the plan has been one of the most wonderful examples of how democracy works in the 21st century.
Kat Beaudoin: The planning process was led by the communities.
We actually -- we brought the money, we brought the consultants, the experts, and we then
sat back. We didn't even vote. We allowed the communities to decide how they wanted
to direct their future as a region. That was a very different approach.
Don White: The Gateway 1 plan will help the community
in the future to put together alternate routes for local traffic, and to have some extra
funding to do some planning and feasibility study.
George Terrien: Gateway 1 allows us to address the transformation
of Rockland into a destination, and a service destination, a cultural destination, a tourist
destination, commercial destination. All of those things are vital to Rockland's future.
Mary Kate Reny: All of those things are what the corridor
action plan are really prioritizing. And I have to say they are completely parallel to
our business plan. We -- if, you know, if that's not an economic driver for the state
of Maine, I don't know what is.
Jim Upham: The communities are expected to do a better
job with land use planning along the corridor, and if they do that, they're going to see
an easier route to DOT funding. I think the whole process is a model. Success isn't going
to be measured for a whole bunch of years, but I do think that the planning process and
the plan that came out of that process is probably really cutting edge and ought to
be thought of as a model.
[music playing]