Article by Craig Bramley
On March 6, 2025, the Maine Turnpike Authority signaled that it is pausing efforts to build the Gorham Connector, a highway expansion the Sierra Club has publicly opposed.
For nearly 20 years the Maine Turnpike Authority (“MTA”) has been in discussion regarding or actively planning to build a five-mile, four lane highway between the Maine Mall area of South Portland and Gorham. This project has been vigorously opposed by a coalition of environmental and smart growth organizations, including Sierra Club. The highway would encourage increased motor vehicle transportation and dispersed housing development, endanger the viability of the native trout population of Red Brook, and pass through Smiling Hill Farm, all in hopes of saving commuters as little as four minutes of commuting time. The project would have cost more than $350 million dollars and depended on tolls collected on all turnpike users.
Stopping this project is a huge win for Maine’s environment and efforts to encourage sustainable growth in Southern Maine. It is also a great example of what can be accomplished through grassroots organizing and coalition building. Sierra Club staff and volunteers have been actively working in opposition to the Gorham Connector for three years and have joined with other volunteers and organizations as part of Mainers for Smarter Transportation (“M4ST”), a group formed specifically to work in opposition to the project. Through M4ST and the work of coalition partners like Sierra Club, over 12,000 Mainers signed a petition opposing the Gorham Connector. When this opposition came together, the conventional wisdom was that the Gorham Connector could not be stopped. Citizens like you showed up at public forums and city council meetings, contacted public officials to voice their opposition, and wrote op-eds and letters to the editor. These efforts showed politicians and the MTA that there was strong opposition and turned the tide.
In its press release of March 6th, the MTA announced that it had asked the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) to step in and take the lead in reevaluating the transportation issues in the region west of Portland with consideration of how transit and active transportation fit into the region’s transportation solutions. The press release also noted the impact of public feedback and questions on the MTA’s decision to pause its work on the project.
Our work is not done. While the MTA’s announcement is a major victory, we are working to ensure that this unnecessary highway never gets built. Sierra Club and its coalition partners are working in support of a bill that will repeal the 2017 law authorizing the MTA to build the Gorham Connector. Senator Stacy Brenner is the lead sponsor of L.D. 1020, An Act to Repeal the Laws Providing for the Construction of a Connector to Gorham and to Resell Land Taken Under Those Laws to Previous Property Owners. (link)
Members are encouraged to contact their legislators in support of L.D. 1020. We will provide information regarding the submission of testimony once a hearing on the bill is scheduled.