With hundreds of students crossing Mayflower Hill Drive daily to get to the Diamond Building, with two more academic buildings planned across the street from the main part of campus, and with the condition of pavement deteriorating year after year, repairs and improvements to the main road through Colby's campus have been a high priority for the College for several years.

Now, with public funds not available to rebuild the road, a state Department of Transportation plan has given Colby ownership, control of, and responsibility for one mile of Mayflower Hill Drive through campus. The Waterville City Council approved the plan in spring 2008. The College was budgeting $5 to 7 million to rebuild the roadway, incorporating traffic-calming features to slow down vehicles near crosswalks, bike lanes, turnouts, landscaping, and state-of-the-art drainage control and treatment.

Construction is likely to begin 2009, though some temporary repairs were required in 2008.

The primary concern is safety, President William Adams said at a City Council hearing. With several thousand pedestrian crossings per day, traffic speeds on Mayflower Hill Drive are "too high," he said. Colby's plans include new parking pull-outs, sidewalks, lighting, and landscaping as well as traffic-calming features like raised speed tables at crosswalks, signs, and other visual cues to slow cars down.

While Colby now ows the roadway, the agreement among Colby, DOT, and Waterville stipulates that the College may not close the road until 2015, and College officials stressed at the public hearing that the College has no plans to do so. As part of the agreement, Colby will provide $250,000 to Waterville for improvements on roads that may see increased traffic once the traffic calming is installed.

At the public hearing David Bernier '79, a former Waterville mayor, recalled a similar transaction in the 1980s. He said he was on the council when the city abandoned the road between Miller Library and Lorimer Chapel, in part because of similar concerns about pedestrian safety on campus.