Sagamore Bridge plan sidelined

A key legislative committee yesterday shelved Governor Mitt Romney's plan to build a direct highway overpass at the Sagamore Rotary to speed the trip to Cape Cod, calling for further study on its impact and cost.

Construction on the $35 million project was set to start this spring. But before that can happen, legislative approval is required to allow the town of Bourne to relocate a fire station at the rotary onto nearby town-owned open space.

The 7-to-2 vote yesterday by the Transportation Committee sending the measure for further study marks another Romney administration initiative stalled by the Legislature, and one that the governor had singled out as a top priority. Last April, Romney said of the rotary project, "If I couldn't get that fixed, I'd have to resign in shame."

The overpass, known as a "flyover," is supported in the town of Bourne and by Cape Cod legislators; environmentalists and some planners on the Cape oppose the plan on the grounds that better traffic flow will lead to more pollution and development in the region.

Representative Joseph Wagner, a Chicopee Democrat who is House chairman of the transportation committee, said his concern was that the project wouldn't improve traffic flow enough to justify the cost and that the cost was likely to balloon, possibly to $70 million.

"You're taking out a rotary and putting in a direct connection to the Sagamore Bridge, but without improvements to the adjacent roadway system, I'm not sure you get the bang for the buck," Wagner said.

"We had questions in that area, and about the issue of cost," he said, particularly the expensive process of taking land for the project. "If there has been any miscalculation on the real estate piece, in this particular market, it could drive up the cost by millions."

Sending a bill for further study is a common way for lawmakers to kill a measure. But Wagner said if he gets satisfactory answers from the administration, he could bring the bill back to his committee within weeks, and send it on for a vote before the full Legislature.

John Cogliano, commissioner of the Massachusetts Highway Department, said that the major land acquisitions for the project have been made, including four homes and one business. The only additional acquisitions are small strips of land, Cogliano said, and land acquisition costs should be between $5 and $6 million, which is part of the $35 million estimate.

Relocating the Bourne fire station to the parcel 300 yards away would cost $4 million. The state also plans to build a $100,000 visitor center and a new highway equipment depot, the cost of which has not been determined. But even with these additional costs, the total estimate should not grow significantly, he said.

Cogliano conceded that there are no planned widenings or interchange improvements on either side of the flyover, and that the four-lane, 1930s-era Sagamore Bridge, under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers, cannot be widened. But he said that the flyover would greatly improve traffic flow for Cape-bound drivers on Route 3 and Route 6 because those motorists would no longer have to merge at the rotary with local traffic.

"It improves traffic efficiency, not capacity," he said.

In addition, Cogliano said, "this project is a public safety project. [The rotary] has the highest number of accidents in Barnstable County."

Federal highway officials support the project and 80 percent of the cost will be paid for with federal funds. State funding has yet to be approved.

Typically the Legislature signs off on transportation projects planned by the executive branch through transportation bond bills. but the Sagamore project was before the transportation committee for a separate authorization for the land acquisition. The specific measure sent for further study yesterday needs two-thirds approval from the full Legislature, because it involves giving a town permission to use open space for purposes besides a park, in this case the fire station. If the vote isn't taken, the bill could be refiled for the next session.

Romney singled out the Sagamore Rotary as a highway bottleneck that needed to be addressed immediately, and said the flyover would not only benefit seasonal residents but help Cape Cod tourism generally.

But environmental groups such as the Conservation Law Foundation said improving traffic flow could have the secondary effect of opening up more of the Cape for development and that public transit projects were more deserving of funding.

In announcing his $1.1 billion transportation bond bill last month, Romney said that he generally favored transit projects over highway widening.

Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com.