It’s shaping up to be a busy summer on Maine’s roads.
Just as traffic congestion peaks when travelers come to Maine, highway officials and contractors are also taking advantage of a recent increase in state and federal funding to catch up on a bigger number of construction projects on roads and bridges this season. Federal transportation funding to Maine is expected to double under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021, while the state highway fund also got a boost last year.
On top of that new funding, there is also still some road damage leftover from last winter’s heavy storms that’s in varying stages of repair.
While officials say these projects will eventually leave Maine roads better able to withstand bigger storms, as well as safer for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, they may cause some headaches over the next couple months.
Here’s an overview of some road construction projects that drivers who live in Maine or are visiting for the summer may encounter — or try to avoid — in the coming months.
Route 1 in Searsport
Perhaps the biggest disruption awaits drivers in downtown Searsport, where a two-year construction project along a busy two-mile stretch of coastal Route 1 resumed last spring and has prompted a five-mile detour for southbound drivers.
The detour is expected to last until the fall, though the contractors have occasionally lifted it, such as during the Memorial Day weekend. The $17.8 million project, which is expected to wrap up in June 2025, is adding a center lane for turning left between Trundy Road and Station Avenue, while also extending sidewalks down more of the corridor and adding crossing lights for pedestrians.
Main Street in Bar Harbor
In another of Maine’s busiest summer spots, downtown Bar Harbor, the section of Main Street between Wayman Lane and Cromwell Harbor Road will be closed to through-traffic, with cars being diverted to residential streets, as the town upgrades utility lines there.
The work is expected to last through much of the summer, but will be temporarily paused for Independence Day, which draws many visitors to the Mount Desert Island town.
Fallout from winter storms
Some of Maine’s coastal roads were battered and badly damaged during a set of devastating storms last winter.
The most prominent example may be on Mount Desert Island, where the Seawall Road in Acadia National Park was washed out by the back-by-back storms in early January. The road, where Route 102A passes through the section of park between Southwest Harbor and Bass Harbor, is completely closed. The Maine Department of Transportation still hasn’t committed to rebuilding it, given the damage that future storms could bring.
Travelers trying to reach the Seawall Picnic Area and Campground are advised to go through Bass Harbor to reach them, as they’re on the south side of the closure.
Another road that had to be closed due to the winter storms was Robbins Road in Belfast, which follows part of the northern shore of the Passagassawakeag River. But the city recently decided to restore it, and it’s expected to reopen by early July. However, officials say that this will be an interim fix, and that more work will be needed in the future to ensure the low-lying road can withstand worsening floods.
Southport bridge
Drivers heading to Southport, at the lower end of the Boothbay Peninsula, will have a hard time avoiding a rehabilitation project on the swing bridge entering the town.
While marine traffic can now go past the bridge, it has been reduced to alternating single-lane traffic going over it. The project, which is replacing the bridge deck and making structural repairs, is due to be completed in the spring of 2025, according to Maine DOT.
Greater Bangor detour
There’s now a detour around a section of Levenseller Road in Brewer and Holden while a new bridge is installed as part of the Interstate 395-Route 9 connector project. The detour onto Clewleyville Road will last until September.
Central Maine bridges
Two bridges over the Kennebec River are also getting renovations that have prompted detours through the region.
From July 16 to Aug. 8, drivers will not be able to drive east from Gardiner to Randolph over the Pearl Harbor Remembrance Bridge, as its surface is replaced. A detour will instead send them to bridges in either Augusta to the north, or Richmond-Dresden to the south.
Further up the river, an ongoing multi-year reconstruction of the upstream half of the Ticonic Bridge between Waterville and Winslow is preventing westbound vehicles from crossing. They are instead being detoured downstream to the Carter Memorial Bridge. The vehicle detour is expected to last until August 2026.
