SKOWHEGAN -- A controversial plan to construct a second bridge over the Kennebec River with connector roads that would bypass the downtown business district is set for a public meeting today.

The Public Advisory Committee meeting, hosted by the state Department of Transportation, is set for 3:30 p.m. at the Community Center off West Front Street.

The meeting is part of a series of sessions designed to air environmental, natural resources, traffic and economic data on what a second bridge and a bypass route would mean to residents and businesses.

The scheduled topic today is the projected economic impact of rerouting east-west traffic away from downtown Skowhegan, Department of Transportation project manager Judith Lindsey said.

The committee is made of about 15 people appointed by the towns of Skowhegan and Madison, where the greatest impact will be felt, Lindsey said Wednesday.

"On (today's) agenda we are going to present the results of an economic analysis that we conducted this summer," she said. "It was a survey of the businesses in the downtown area -- that is going to be probably 95 percent of our meeting -- presenting the results of the economic study and the responses from the businesses."

Lindsey said 80 to 100 local businesses responded to the survey.

"The summary is that there is a positive future outlook for the Skowhegan and Madison area," she said. "Most of the businesses that responded were not reliant on drive-by traffic."

Lindsey said there are some businesses downtown that do depend on the drive-by traffic, but a bypass route would be a minor impact to the overall business climate, a point disputed by some and supported by others.

Studies by the Maine DOT were begun in 1999. Lindsey said with the current economy, construction, if the project is ever approved, is still 10 to 15 years away.

Supporters of the plan say the town could become a destination for shoppers and sporting enthusiasts who would come to Skowhegan for a planned whitewater kayaking park on the downtown portion of the Kennebec River.

Big trucks rumbling through the shopping district and other through-traffic discourage foot traffic, they have said at previous meetings.

Others say the bypass would slice through residential neighborhoods and be the death knell for downtown Skowhegan.

"Once you bypass her, she's over," Walter Hight, owner of Hight Chevrolet/Buick/ Pontiac/GMC in downtown, was quoted as saying in February 2008. "She'll be dead."

Snowmobilers and summer vacationers who pass through town by the hundreds every weekend will take the bypass, he said.

"It'll kill everybody's business," Hight said last year. "There won't be any business. You won't have to worry about trucks. You'll be able to plant a lawn on Main Street. You want more traffic, not less."

But other business leaders disagreed.

"I've talked to many, many people who avoid the downtown because of that traffic," Rodney Whittemore of Whittemore & Sons, an outdoor equipment store, said in 2008. "This could allow new development toward shopping, perhaps a multi-store mall.

"There's lots of possibilities downtown. Those people who think that this bypass will make Skowhegan a ghost town have totally, totally missed the point."

The project would be the third and final piece of a federally funded east-west highway that would stretch from Calais to New York, according to published reports.

The second bridge is still projected to cross near the Great Eddy of the Kennebec River on U.S. Route 2.

In a non-binding referendum in Skowhegan in 2004, voters supported a second bridge across the Kennebec River by a 2-to-1 margin. In the same 2004 vote, residents opposed the bypass, 754 to 544.

The next meeting on the bridge and bypass committee is set for Thursday Jan. 29, when the traffic analysis is scheduled to be discussed.

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534, ext. 342

dharlow@centralmaine.com