Scarborough officials hear final Complete Streets guidance and traffic-calming toolkit

Consultants for the town presented a near-final Complete Streets and traffic-calming guidance manual on July 15, outlining locally tailored street types, cross sections and a menu of traffic-calming tools intended to guide consistent roadway design across Scarborough.

"We received funding through PACS, through GPCOG to do ... our complete streets revamping our complete streets policy," said Joe Poirier, a transit planning principal, describing the project’s regional funding and purpose. Kate Elliott, the Nelson Nygaard project manager, said the manual is split into five chapters and is intended as guidance, not mandatory technical standards. "Guidance is valuable, it's context sensitive, but it also allows for flexibility," she said.

The manual classifies Scarborough streets into types — neighborhood connectors, beach streets, village and town connectors, major corridors, rural connectors and industrial business access — and pairs each with design guidance and recommended traffic-calming measures. Consultants showed typical right-of-way cross sections, noting, for example, a 100-foot typical right-of-way for some major corridors and narrower (20–50 foot) widths for neighborhood streets. The guidance includes recommended posted- and target-speed ranges, design vehicles and typical treatments for each street type.

Ainsley Judge of Neighborways Design walked the council through the traffic-calming toolkit, which is organized into horizontal (curb extensions, chicanes), vertical (speed humps, raised crosswalks), traffic-control (neighborhood traffic circles, rapid flashing beacons) and placemaking tools. "These tools can be really useful on any street type, but especially rural streets," Judge said, and noted built-in icons and charts that flag preferred contexts for specific tools.

Councilors asked how the manual will be used in practice. Consultants said staff and the planning board will use the document to make consistent recommendations during project review and that some elements could be incorporated into ordinance chapter 707 (street standards). "We would use this tool to actually point out here's some suggestions or recommendations that staff would have," a consultant said, adding that the manual includes a recommended update to town traffic-calming protocols.

Officials also discussed corridors under state jurisdiction, such as Route 1 and Pine Point Road. Consultants and staff said the town can still coordinate with MaineDOT and incorporate manual recommendations into grant applications or project scoping, though final authority on state highways rests with the DOT.

The presenters said the manual is finalized and recommended that the council accept it for final review and adoption in August. They also described a planned traffic-calming pilot intended to apply the manual’s guidance in the field.

What’s next: the council was asked to review the manual ahead of an August agenda item for formal acceptance. Staff and the planning board will use the guidance in project review and grant applications, and the town will pursue a pilot applying the manual’s recommendations on a targeted corridor.