Groton — The state Department of Transportation may change the Interstate 95 Exit 89 sign from Allyn Street to Mystic or Downtown Mystic — if the Groton Town Council approves.

Councilors voted this week to ask Town Manager Mark Oefinger to draft a resolution reversing a 1989 prohibition against changing the sign.

Councilors are scheduled to vote on the resolution during their next meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Town Hall Annex.

Business groups such as the Groton Business Association and Downtown Mystic Merchant Association want the sign changed to direct traffic to downtown Mystic.

The current signs direct out-of-town travelers off the highway at Exit 90 in Stonington, and many mistake Olde Mystick Village for historic Mystic in Groton, according to a memo on the project.

"I think we've done an injustice to all of the businesses that are located in Mystic," Councilor Karen Morton said. "Because there are just so many great businesses that are down there, that people have no idea they even exist."

Economic growth is the only way Groton will keep its storefronts filled, its taxes down and people living in the town, Councilor Bonnie Nault said.

“We need this,” she said.

But Councilor Dean Antipas, who lives on Payer Lane off Allyn Street, said everyone seemed to know about the proposed change except those who live on Allyn Street.

He got an email from a business group urging members to speak about the change before he even knew it was coming up, he said.

“People get off 95, they will zoom down Allyn Street until they hit something — a stop sign, a light; hopefully, not my kid,” he said.

Antipas said he'll let his 15-year-old cross the road because there are gaps in traffic. But if the sign changes, traffic from I-95 will cut him and his neighbors off from Mystic, he said.

Neighbors spoke out against changing the sign in the late 1980s, prompting the council to adopt a resolution in 1989 forbidding the change.

Exit 89 leads to Route 614 and travels south to connect with Route 1. Residents along 614 believed changing the sign would increase traffic and confuse visitors looking for Mystic Aquarium or Mystic Seaport.

The transportation department plans to replace the I-95 signs northbound and southbound, including entrance and exit ramps, from Exit 85 in Groton to the Rhode Island state line.

The project would cost about $9 million, be paid for with state money and be completed in early 2017.

Comments on the plan are due by the end of this month.

Paige Bronk, Groton’s economic and community development manager, said Groton has what he described as “close to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to direct business to downtown Mystic.

“It probably won’t happen again for another 30-plus years,” he said. "And we believe that it should be supported in that it would actually complement our local efforts to improve our image, our brand and local signage."

But Antipas said cars already speed on Allyn Street, families live on both sides and there are no sidewalks for a long stretch.

“It would create a huge traffic jam,” Luanne DeMatto, a member of Representative Town Meeting who lives on Sandy Hollow Road, said. “It’s already bad when the bridge is open.”

If the sign on I-95 changed, the state would have to add a traffic signal at the end of the exit ramp, she said.

But that would create a traffic problem off I-95, she said.

"I've been working this issue for 46 years," Kathleen O'Beirne, who lives on the corner of Allyn Street and Route 1, said.

In 1969 and 1970, a neighborhood group called "Trees" was formed to try to stop the state from turning Allyn Street into a connector road to the interstate, she said.

The group was able to stop the state from bringing a four-lane road to Allyn Street and instead kept it to two lanes.

"Trees" also persuaded the town to change zoning on the street, acquire about 400 acres of open space and establish the Historic District, which required approval of 75 percent of property owners.

The state also acquiesced and agreed to name the exit "Allyn Street" and not designate it as a commercial area.

Neighbors fought off another attempt to change the name of the exit in 1989.

O'Beirne said her neighbors weren't aware until Thursday of the most recent attempt to change the exit.

She said she expects them to attend the council meeting Tuesday.

"So much traffic; how can anybody possibly park or shop? There are no spaces," she said. 

Locals will abandon shopping in downtown Mystic if traffic gets any worse, she said, yet locals are the area's year-round shoppers.

"I just don't get it," she said.

d.straszheim@theday.com