Remember Gateway 1?

The think tank for land use and transportation planning along the Route 1 corridor still has a handful of active believers, nearly three years after Gov. Paul LePage's administration pulled the state's backing. And now those who have continued to meet, several times a year, are poised to mount a comeback.

The group is aiming to renew towns' interest in Gateway 1's 2009 plan to keep cars moving and jobs growing, while protecting each town's character.

Plans call for getting the message out that Gateway 1 is no longer looking to share some of the state's decision-making on transportation spending.The group plans to show towns a set of bylaws that are part of the path toward Gateway 1 becoming a nonprofit; and a possible deal is being eyed for Friends of Midcoast Maine to temporarily stand in as the nonprofit, accepting grants and other donations for Gateway 1.

“We're recalibrating,” said Gateway 1's interim chairman Steve Ryan.

Many towns on the corridor didn't want the transportation power shift that was talked about years ago, Ryan said. “We are not raising that again. That is not what we're proposing and it's not what we're talking about now.”

The bylaws are still being drafted, but nothing in them will demand that towns do anything or pay anything, Ryan said.

The group just wants towns back at the table, Ryan said.

“It's at the heart of what we're all talking about: Can we collaborate on keeping Route 1 ... the way we like it, and what do we have to do to make it happen?”

Revisiting Gateway 1 may not be an easy sell in Wiscasset. Selectmen's Chairman Ed Polewarczyk said the town just took a big stand for local control when voters decided to get out of Regional School Unit 12. The town has made it clear it does not want other towns making decisions for it, he said.

“Unless something substantial has changed, I still would not be in favor of participating,” Polewarczyk said.

Local control was the biggest reason Woolwich didn't choose to be part of Gateway 1, Woolwich Selectmen's Chairman David King said.

“Of course, we'll listen if they have something to say, and we'll make a decision afterward,” King said.

Gateway 1 formed while Democrat John Baldacci was governor; it lost state funding early in the LePage administration.

That wounded, but didn't kill, it, partly because Gateway 1 was not solely the state's project to kill. But mostly, it didn't die because those who'd come to believe in it, didn't want it to.

“Even though the funding was taken away, the group never stopped meeting,” said Don White, chairman from December 2009 (a little over a year before the state pulled out) until September 2013.

White is staying on as Camden's lead representative. How does he explain the group's survival after the financial plug was pulled?

“I think the idea of transportation and land use working in concert to continue our rural setting is uppermost for all of us,” White said.

Gauging Gateway 1's current support among corridor towns is not a black and white matter, but it never was, according to Ryan and White. Even when the state was involved, towns took part in varying ways, at different times, from having representatives sign the 2009 action plan, to incorporating the plan, in whole or in part, into their own comprehensive plans.

These days, some towns send official representatives to the meetings; others have interested residents who attend on their own. “We haven't asked for any documentation for some time now ...,” Ryan wrote in an email. “We value people's participation more than their formal endorsement.”

Belfast, Lincolnville, Camden, Rockport, Rockland, Thomaston, Waldoboro, Edgecomb, Newcastle, Damariscotta and Bath have all continued to take part at “varying levels of intensity,” White said.

Jarryl Larson of Edgecomb, a past secretary for a Gateway 1 subcommittee, has continued to attend meetings, because she said, the work and funding that went into the action plan still have value.

“I don't like wasting money,” she said. “I'm very hopeful now,” she said about the group's progress. “Now we're moving. Now we have a direction.”

Selectmen's Chairman Jack Sarmanian, once Edgecomb's Gateway 1 representative, said he is aware Larson attends the meetings, but the town of Edgecomb hasn't been involved since the state's pullout. He would have to see what the group is proposing before he would consider getting the town involved again, he said.

Newcastle has no one officially representing the town at Gateway 1 meetings, according to officials there.

Damariscotta Town Manager Matt Lutkus attends Gateway 1meetings. He’s missed the last few, but is interested to see what the group does that Damariscotta might want to be a part of. “We feel that that regional participation and cooperation is important,” he said.

Under a draft version Ryan provided of  bylaws for “Gateway 1 Corridor Coalition Inc.,” the group would look into alternatives for freight and passenger transport along the corridor; and help towns collaborate on their land use and transportation planning.

A key piece the group has been exploring is going nonprofit to raise money to support its work. But getting that status can take time and some extensive work.

“We need a bridge to help us through this period,” Ryan said.

That's where Friends of Midcoast Maine may come in.

The nonprofit may step in as a short-term, fiscal agent, executive director Jane Lafleur said. Friends has done it for numerous other groups, for a small cut of the income, usually about 5 percent, to cover the costs to manage the money.

Friends' motivation to be that bridge for the Gateway 1 Corridor Coalition would lie in their similar goals, Lafleur said. Both groups want to preserve the region's character, preserve and improve the job picture and grow transportation options.

The Gateway 1 group's survival years after the state's breakaway has impressed Lafleur. “They're still here, with or without state support. The fact that these folks have stayed together to make sure that this stays a thriving place, I think that's very important,” she said.

Even if the group doesn't persuade more towns to get on board, it can still have an impact, White said. “It think it can be as effective as the communities decide jointly to do, whether they decide to take on any major projects or not. I don't think it's necessary to have all (the) towns.

“It's like anything else. It's a planning tool that can be of great interest and benefit to communities along Route 1 and in Midcoast Maine,” he said.