EXETER, Maine — Route 11-43 doesn’t lead directly to a city, but it is a major connector road for the transportation of central Maine’s resources — from milk to potatoes to logs — and it’s in bad shape, local and state officials agree.
Bad enough that residents have been speaking out about the condition after suffering in silence in recent years. About 20 businessmen and farmers signed a petition last month about the deplorable condition of the road, with its bumps, dips and cracks, and sent it to the Maine Department of Transportation as well as to Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, and Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden.
The petition prompted a meeting earlier this week in Exeter attended by MDOT Commissioner David Bernhardt, Fredette, Plowman, and Exeter, Corinna and Corinth town officials.
“We just told them we’re fed up with this road. It’s a terrible piece of road,” Exeter Selectman Jim Crane said Friday. ”All of the potatoes in central Maine, all the milk that comes out of central Maine and Exeter, all the logs and timber that go over this road, and it’s the worst piece of road in the state.”
The condition of the road in the spring is the worst by far, according to Crane. He said that while the road has a 45-mph speed limit, most motorists drive about 25 mph to avoid damage to their vehicles. Since new interstate truck regulations took effect, the road has gotten even more use, he noted.
“The traffic this road gets is just incredible,” Crane said.
Despite the urgent need for repairs, Bernhardt told town officials that there are no plans to make immediate road improvements.
“They don’t plan on fixing it until 2013,” Exeter Town Manager Tressa Smith said Thursday. “That’s not a good thing.”
Town officials were told that there will be no changes this summer, but ditching and culvert work will be done next summer on the 19-mile stretch. The DOT plans to shim and overlay the road in 2013 to even it out and fund a rehabilitation of the road in the next budget cycle.
Crane said he likes to be part of the solution rather than gripe about something. He said as long as there is a plan, he guessed people could live with it for a while. After all, he said, “This is the first time the commissioner of transportation has come to the town of Exeter and we’re grateful for his attention.”