PORTSMOUTH — New Hampshire transportation officials are constantly trying to relieve traffic pressure in the convoluted area after the Hampton tollbooth and before entering Maine, but southbound problems on the Piscataqua River Bridge had not hit their radar.

That was until they saw a Portland Press Herald article last week in which Maine officials blamed the bridge, and the views it provides, for miles of traffic backups on Interstate 95 southbound on summer Sundays.

Maine officials are now hoping New Hampshire will work with them to help solve the problem. One idea being floated involves a big curtain.

“Our people are interested in sitting down internally and with Maine and talking about what are some of the short-term and long-term type of improvements we can be looking at,” said Bill Boynton, spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

Boynton acknowledged that traffic flow at the myriad exits in New Hampshire after the bridge, including Exit 7 into downtown Portsmouth and the malls and Exit 5 toward the traffic circle and Route 16, and merging traffic from Route 16 onto Interstate 95 could be improved through signage and re-striping lines, but with the $98 million Memorial Bridge replacement about to begin and pricey rehabilitation needed to the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, long-term improvements to the I-95 bridge are not at the top of his list of priorities.

Boynton said there is no question that traffic does seem to slow down on the bridge, but he has no “great insight” on the bridge itself.

“It is the first time I've heard it, but is one of those things where we circulate it internally and say can we take a look at it,” Boynton said. “We are certainly willing to take a closer look at it and see if there are any issues there.”

He said the closure of the Memorial Bridge this summer and the addition of high-speed toll lanes in Hampton may be highlighting traffic issues elsewhere.

Having the Memorial Bridge out of the area's three-bridge mix right now is also changing some of the traffic patterns, he said.

“Whether there is a capacity issue, I guess I'm not ready to acknowledge that yet.”

Weighing options

On Sunday of the Labor Day weekend, southbound I-95 traffic was backed up for miles into Maine, said Peter Mills, interim executive director for the Maine Turnpike Authority (MTA). Afterward, Mills said, he exchanged emails with Christopher Waszczuk, administrator for the New Hampshire Bureau of Turnpikes, about possible solutions.

Some ideas Mills proffered from discussion with engineers from the MTA and the Highway National Transportation Bureau include re-striping the lanes on the bridge to offer four travel lanes in each direction instead of three or creating a center lane that could be used alternately as a northbound lane on Fridays and Saturdays in August and as a southbound lane on Sundays.

“I am not sure it is feasible on this bridge, but it has been done elsewhere,” Mills said.

Mills also pointed to the “complex geometry” of the New Hampshire highway south of the bridge, where a series of curves, interchanges and ramps cause people to slow down, creating congestion on the bridge.

In another 15 years or so, he said, the bridge deck must be rebuilt, and that may be a good time to make alterations, but a plan needs to be developed now and smaller changes made in the interim.

He also proposed erecting a curtain barrier on the up-wind, upstream side of the bridge to reduce wind buffeting and to discourage motorists from “rubber-necking,” both of which cause drivers to reduce speed.

“It has been done on some high-level bridges in the Northeast … but I don't know that it would create anything more than a marginal improvement,” Mills said, adding that capacity is the fundamental problem.

Misplaced blame?

For years, the York, Maine, tollbooth has been blamed for traffic congestion in and out of Vacationland, but Mills said the addition of E-ZPass at each of the 17 lanes has been the “salvation” of the aging tollbooth and it is no longer the problem. Mills said the tolls seldom reach the maximum capacity of 4,000 vehicles an hour.

“The truth is, you might as well sit there and wait and pay your toll because once you get through the toll, you are going to be parked waiting for the bridge,” Mills said. “The toll itself is not the cause, at least not the predominant cause of the congestion anymore.”

Mills said he has been appointed to continue as the MTA's executive director and has a checklist of things that need to get done.

“Coming up with a long-range plan about congestion in York County is certainly one of them,” Mills said.

The Maine Turnpike Authority operates 109 miles of highway independent of the Maine Department of Transportation.

He said another possible solution 20 or 30 years down the road would be to build another bridge just like it, convert the current bridge into northbound traffic only and have the new bridge for southbound traffic, or vice versa.

Mills and Boynton said it is true that traffic is really only a problem in the area about six weekends out of the year.

“Sometimes, even a road as big as that one gets congested,” Boynton said.