If you've driven Route 1 past Little Dolphin Plaza since July, you've seen the raised white islands down the center line and the cluster of white bumps at the Hannaford Drive corner. Did anyone ask whether they should stay?
Not yet. That vote comes later, and the town set up the timing on purpose. The installations went in on July 8, 2026. The town says they will come out by November 15 at the latest. Whether anything permanent replaces them depends on numbers gathered while the rest of us drove through all summer. Scarborough has treated "temporary" as a real test. Earlier this year the Town Council turned down a different Route 1 trial before it started.
Three things are being tested on one short stretch
The project sits on Route 1 between Hannaford Drive and Little Dolphin Drive. That's the stretch you pass on the way to JoJo's Thai Kitchen at 183 US Route 1 in Little Dolphin Plaza. The Town of Scarborough's project page describes three pieces:
- Center median islands near Little Dolphin Drive. These are raised, low-profile islands placed where left turns aren't needed. They make the road look and feel narrower, and research cited by the town shows drivers slow down when lanes feel tighter. Permitted turns at intersections and driveways still work. Emergency vehicles can drive over the islands if they need to.
- A trial truck apron at Hannaford Drive. The white bumps at that corner mark where an apron would go. Cars make a tighter turn and stay farther from people waiting on the sidewalk. Trucks and other large vehicles can still roll their rear wheels across the apron to complete the turn.
- Better crosswalk treatments at the Hannaford Drive intersection. The goal is safer crossings at one of the two spots the town singled out.
The town's FAQ explains why the islands are raised. Painted lines are easy to ignore. A raised edge gives drivers a physical cue, and it still stays low enough for emergency vehicles and maintenance operations to get over.
Why this stretch, and what "better" would mean
This location came from Scarborough's own planning. A median near Route 1 and Little Dolphin Drive was a recommendation in the town's Townwide Transportation Assessment, finished in 2025. The town's case rests on two numbers for the corridor from Hannaford Drive to Maple Avenue:
Measure | Town figure | Baseline it's set against |
|---|---|---|
Crashes resulting in injury | 23 | Five years, 2021 through 2025 |
85th-percentile speed | 39.1 mph | Posted limit of 35 mph |
The speed figure is the one the islands can most directly change. The 85th percentile is the speed most drivers stay at or below. On this stretch, even that group is going about 4 mph over the limit. The town says the project team recorded vehicle speeds, traffic operations, and driver behavior before installation. It will compare those with data collected while the islands were in place, looking at whether speeds and crashes, severe crashes in particular, went down.
That before-and-after comparison is the heart of the project. A painted crosswalk or a new sign usually goes in without a measured baseline, so nobody can say later whether it worked. This one was designed to produce an answer.
A regional program with a small budget per site
The Scarborough project is one of three 2026 demonstrations run by the Greater Portland Council of Governments (GPCOG) under the regional Vision Zero initiative it leads with the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System. The other two are on Commercial Street in Portland and Main Street in Saco. The Scarborough Town Council adopted GPCOG's Vision Zero Action Plan in May 2025, which is how the town came to be part of this.
A GPCOG presentation dated April 28, 2026 lays out the money. A FY23 federal Safe Streets and Roads for All award of $636,772, plus 10% in dues and 10% in-kind support, pays for a 2024 to 2027 program. That program covers nine demonstration projects, three intersection safety redesigns, three road safety audits, and one roundabout study across Biddeford, Portland, Saco, Scarborough, South Portland, Westbrook, and Yarmouth. Each demonstration gets about $20,000 for staff time and $5,000 to $10,000 for materials. The Bicycle Coalition of Maine and Neighborways are the consultants. Stakeholders listed include the Federal Highway Administration, MaineDOT, and Scarborough's Transportation Committee.
The per-site budget explains why the islands look the way they do. On a few thousand dollars for materials, you can test whether drivers slow down. You can't build a permanent median that way. When the projects were announced, Maine Public reported that GPCOG transportation planning manager Cashel Stewart described them as low-cost, quick-build designs that let towns try changes before making bigger investments. Maine Public also reported Stewart saying the Saco and Scarborough projects targeted corridors that are "dangerous by design."
The other Route 1 experiment was called off
In March, the Portland Press Herald previewed two separate Route 1 efforts planned for this summer, one by MaineDOT and one by GPCOG. Only one of them happened.
The MaineDOT pilot would have cut northbound Route 1 to one lane for about 1.2 miles, including the stretch across Scarborough Marsh. It was planned for roughly June 15 through August 10. The town had requested it to see whether the existing road could fit a future multi-use path for bikes and pedestrians. The path would be part of the Route 1 resiliency project, which includes a new bridge expected to last more than 100 years. Because MaineDOT has to limit its impact on the marsh, the road can't be widened to make room for a path. The town also noted that MaineDOT's traffic models showed no delays from the lane cut, but models don't account for how drivers actually behave. That was the reason for testing it during peak summer traffic.
After a workshop with MaineDOT on May 6, the Town Council decided not to go ahead with the pilot.
The two Route 1 changes took different paths. The council stopped the marsh pilot before it began. The Hannaford Drive trial ran all summer, and its results and any next steps are still pending. If you ride or walk the Eastern Trail connection through the marsh, the marsh decision matters to you too, because it bears on whether Route 1 itself ever gets an off-road path across the marsh.
The calendar from here
The original GPCOG timeline and the town's current page differ slightly on removal. The April presentation scheduled removal and data analysis for October and November, with a final report in December. The town now says the installations will stay up until November 15 at the latest, which gives GPCOG time to finish collecting data.
- July 8, 2026: Installed. WGME had reported an expected start of July 7.
- October 2, 2026: GPCOG's regional post-installation survey closed. The town's project page still shows the survey link. Comments can still go to [email protected].
- By November 15, 2026: Installations removed.
- December 2026: GPCOG's final report, according to the April schedule.
- After that: The town says any next steps will go through the Transportation Committee and the Town Council.
As of today, no agenda has been posted that takes up the results. The last Transportation Committee meeting on the town's committee page is September 29, 2026. The Council holds regular meetings on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. The remaining 2026 dates on that schedule are October 21, November 4, November 18, December 2, and December 16. None of them has the project listed yet. Since the final report is due in December, the discussion that decides this probably comes in the new year. No published speed or crash results exist yet, and anyone who says the islands worked or failed is getting ahead of the report.
Once the islands come out by November 15, the road goes back to the shape it had in June, and the decision moves to the Transportation Committee and the Town Council. For more on the town itself, see our Scarborough community page.
We work in Scarborough every week, and a change to the stretch of Route 1 by Hannaford Drive and Little Dolphin Plaza affects how a lot of our clients get to the grocery store, to dinner, and home. If you have questions about how the Route 1 decisions could affect your part of town, the team at Amy Foley is glad to walk through what we're following. Contact Us.
Ready to see what is available in Southern Maine? Browse Scarborough single-family homes for sale, including a few current listings:
- 10 Snow Goose Ln #10, Westbrook (04092) | 3 bd, 3 ba, 1,442 sq ft
- 16 Colony Way, Kittery (03904) | 2 bd, 2 ba, 1,227 sq ft
- 1 Cross St #221, Scarborough (04074) | 2 bd, 2 ba, 1,010 sq ft
Explore all of Scoville Foley Homes' current listings.
