A new plan for dealing with the town’s most central traffic problem at the Depot intersection may come through cooperation of businesses and abutters affected most by the regular traffic backup.

By working with abutters, community development director Bill Scott told selectmen that progress may come as transportation consultants work toward traffic solutions that businesses located at the intersection would contribute to.

“We’re looking at this from the property lines in to form a traffic solution,” Scott said.

During the Monday, May 12, community development presentation to selectmen on the Route 28 transportation corridor, transportation consultant Martin Kennedy of VHB, Inc. showed computer-generated traffic simulations with the lagging traffic that local commuters are familiar with: long lines of cars backed up without being able to take left turns.

Although there’s been talk of improving the intersection of routes 97 and 28 since the early 1990s, Kennedy said a comprehensive plan has been continually stalled and pushed back with ongoing state projects like the I-93 widening.

“We’re really trying to look at this as a clean slate,” Kennedy said. “The past is history and the future is open to ideas.”

Rockingham Park president Ed Callahan told selectmen that many of the abutters of the Depot intersection have walked away from the early information sessions with an open and cooperative mindset to a solution.

“I’ve heard an awful lot of plans, but I think it was the first time I was asked, ‘What do you think?’” Callahan said.

Scott said the plan is entering a second phase now as planners and abutters explore alternate roadways and zoning practices that could alleviate the problem. But the recommendations would likely not be put into place until spring 2009.

The challenge, some selectmen said, is planning the district’s economic revitalization so it doesn’t add additional traffic.

Selectman Michael Lyons said parking should be available on each corner of the intersection to make access to those businesses easier.

A prior state plan to make Route 28 an eight-lane road is not an ideal option, said selectman Everett McBride.

“A citizen cannot make their way across that intersection,” he said. “Maybe I could but not most people.” Lawrence Belair, owner of Victorian Park, told selectmen they should create zoning and planning regulations to show businesses what sort of downtown area they’d like to see.

“It’s probably a once-in-political- lifetime chance to have a lasting effect on the town,” Belair said.