York Toll Plaza

The Maine Turnpike Authority’s (MTA) York Toll Plaza is a very important part of Maine’s transportation infrastructure and was originally built in the 1960’s. The plaza itself is aging and in need of replacement.

The soils on either side of the plaza are settling because of poor soil conditions. After years of debating where to relocate it and then designing it, the MTA chose mile marker 8.8 and put the $40 Million project out to bid in the fall of 2018.

The new toll plaza will have 6 open, high-speed E-ZPass toll lanes (3 in each direction) and 9 cash lanes (5 southbound and 4 northbound). R.J. Grondin & Sons was chosen as the Heavy Highway dirt contractor by the general contractor, Reed & Reed, and began work in December of 2018.

Work started with clearing 17 acres of trees along mainline travel lanes and a new roadway between the turnpike and Chase Pond Road to enable access for MTA employees. The next phase of work was to drill and blast approximately 65,000 cubic yards of ledge to make the site level which was then subsequently used to produce most of the sub-base gravels for the project. Over 300,000 cubic yards of rock, topsoil and excavation had to be either removed or processed to build this project.

The roadway was widened to facilitate the extra lanes needed to approach the new toll area with minimal interruption to existing traffic. Once the outside lanes were built and paved, all three northbound and southbound lanes of traffic were moved to the outside of the project so work could then begin in rebuilding the existing lanes as well as installing a new tunnel stretching the entire width of the toll plaza to enable access for employees as well as a conduit for all the electronics associated with the open, high-speed tolling.

Simultaneously digging and backfilling for the foundation of the administration building began. During the winter months of 2020, R.J. Grondin & Sons is grading and placing the center medians to separate the future travel lanes.

Work will continue well into the 2020 construction season and the anticipated completion date is the summer of 2021.