March 29, 2024
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Heavily traveled Route 186 left behind for repairs

GOULDSBORO – Residents on the Schoodic Peninsula in eastern Hancock County can’t help but feel a little shortchanged.

As a $5.9 million road construction project is set to begin next week on a stretch of U.S. Route 1 in Sullivan, another road farther down the Maine coastline, Route 186, remains in distress.

Route 186 starts in Gouldsboro and winds around the Schoodic Peninsula through Winter Harbor, Prospect Harbor, Corea and the Schoodic Point section of Acadia National Park.

The National Park Service estimated that 170,000 people visited Schoodic Point last year and some feel the Maine Department of Transportation has overlooked the heavily traveled coastal road.

“We realize that Route 1 is a priority, but we have this little piece of Acadia, and it’s only getting worse,” Gouldsboro First Selectman Dana Rice said. “What concerns me is that more people will come and we’ll see an accident or something.”

The road repairs “can’t happen soon enough,” added Winter Harbor Town Manager Roger Barto. He was not optimistic they would happen anytime soon.

“The way money has been spent in recent years, some has been earmarked by legislators, and the DOT does not have the authority to make changes,” Barto said.

The Route 186 renovation was on the MDOT project list for 2006, but it was one of many put on hold by state officials in December 2005 because of an anticipated budget shortfall of $130 million.

MDOT spokesman Herb Thomson said the Legislature’s Transportation Committee is working to restore up to $90 million of that funding, but the Legislature has not decided on that recommendation.

“We work on a biannual work plan here, and there is a finite amount of money over a two-year period,” Thomson explained. “In addition, we’ve had a lot of unanticipated increases in the cost of asphalt, steel and concrete, which has been a major contributor to this reality.”

As a result, the construction on Route 186, along with projects in many other rural communities, has been deferred indefinitely.

“At this time, no projects have been identified,” Thomson said. “We anticipate that some will, but the Legislature is still considering funding.”

“It’s a very hard job. A lot of communities think that they have the worst road,” he added.

Rice said he can sympathize with the MDOT, but that won’t keep him from “politely tugging on their coattails.”

Barto also sympathized but said the road problems are not going away.

“Somewhere along the line, they have to come up with another way to fund road projects,” he said, adding: “I don’t envy the commissioner’s job. There is not much he can do if he doesn’t have the funding.”


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