Maria Fuentes doesn’t want to read about roads that are bad, she wants roads that are downright ugly: pothole-festooned nightmares that wreck vehicle suspensions and cause motorists to yelp in pain when the chasms in the byways swallow wheels.
Her Maine Better Transportation Association will hold its third-annual “Worst Roads in Maine” essay contest this month in search of vivid descriptions of Maine’s most damaged or neglected arteries and how their disarray disrupts the lives of those who use them, she said Sunday.
“It is a way to raise awareness that roads are something that we take for granted that we all need to use on a daily basis,” said Fuentes, executive director of the 700-member road maintenance advocacy group. “We hope that people will take a commute to work and think about the roads that they use every day.”
The contest might seem like an opportunity to make fun of road disrepair, but last year’s contest winner, Carol Kelley of Waldo, told a grim and moving story of how Routes 131, 137 and 141 in Waldo County were painfully rough for her son Mark, who had a spinal rod in his back.
Kelley’s description of how she uses Mark’s shouts of pain as a gauge of a road condition, and the $1,100 they had to pay to add special springs to her van, won her the contest’s $250 prize in 2011, association President Randy Mace said.
The $250 check equals the average amount of extra funding Mainers have to pay to repair their vehicles from road damage, Fuentes said.
“We know that when we don’t take care of our roads there is a human cost and it hits our pocketbooks as well,” Fuentes said.
The contest, Fuentes said, is not intended to mock the Maine Department of Transportation, federal transportation agencies or more local government efforts to maintain roads. If anything, Fuentes gives DOT good grades for its efforts to hold roads together in the face of chronic underfunding.
“We just don’t have the money to fix the roads that we should,” Fuentes said.
The federal government last increased states’ revenue for road repair in 1993, and the work done then has become worn. Maine suffers particularly harshly among New England states with its long and unforgiving winters, its great size and sparse population, Fuentes said.
“Maine gets the same amount of federal funding dollars that New Hampshire does even though we have twice the number of miles of road to take care of,” Fuentes said.
An independent agency last year ranked Maine’s rural roads and bridges 14th and 12th worst in the nation, said Fuentes, whose organization recently spoke in favor of creating a new east-west highway in Maine.
Anyone interested in entering an essay into the contest should visit the group’s websites, FixMaineRoads.org or mbtaonline.org. Entries must include a photograph and a brief description of the road. Entries are due May 16, Fuentes said.
There are so many it’s hard to pick just one.
well les see 116 from medway to chester 11 from millinocket to milo 157 from meday to keg route 2 road to baxter park sucks
We don’t need Big Government to fix our roads!!! Outrageous! Is this what my tax money goes to? Fixing roads? What’s next — bridges that are about to collapse? Paying teachers?! This is outright socialism. We should be marching into the streets (certainly don’t recommend driving on them) and protesting Uncle Sam’s help.
I truly hope you are being sarcastic.
I truly hope she is too…
Yeah, !
We cant afford to fix our roads, we need to give Tax Breaks to the rich so that they can buy them from us and charge us a toll to drive on them!
(Poes Law)
This is not an example of big government, and yes taxes are supposed to be used to fix America’s roads and bridges. Big Government would be if they told you what roads you had to use to get to work instead of giving you the freedom to decide for yourself. I’d ask if you could see the difference, but first you’d need to pull hard on your ears and bear down so you head pops out of your rectum.
wow…..ummmmmm
Rachel, you are absolutely correct.
… respectfully …
A rather critical, underlying issue about what you wrote is that the state (automotive) FUEL taxes are what originally financed roads (and the schools funded by local real estate taxes) – not the federal government. However, due to a low and diminishing population with low per capita income, a state like Maine (with nearly as much geographical area as the rest of the New England states -combined- yet with only about 1.5 million in population) cannot afford the road & highway infrastructure costs. SO – we gladly solicit and (grovel, grovel) come to both depend on the those federal funds – AND become regulated BY the conditions that accompany the money.
That is not what a “republic” is all about anyway. This IS becoming a socialist architecture – and that goes no matter what anyone may carry on about with all their, “liberal-Vs-conservative” or “republican-Vs-democrat” and any other of that, us-Vs-them, (Divide-and-Conquer) style diversion FROM what the “democratic republic” (lovingly) known as “America” is all about.
It’s far TOO rapidly becoming the, Corporate State of America – and I invite anyone to show me otherwise. I would LOVE to be wrong about this.
West St. Princeton. I don’t think it’s been touched since the early 80’s.
All the roads in Presque Isle!!
I drive the PI roads every day .. almost all of them .. none of them are as bad as many roads elsewhere!
Look around i don’t think any Maine road is any good. Waterville any side street. Eustis Parkway is real bad from riding in the back of an ambulance, 201, or any side street for that matter. Carter Memorial bridge i launch my car every time i take it..
I nominate every road….
I heard that Rt. 141 in Swanville, last year’s “Worst Road in Maine” was due for a covering of asphalt this year. 5/8ths of an inch, to be specific, which won’t really fix anything, I don’t think. The stretch closest to the south end of the lake on the west side needs REAL work. I don’t know what the answer is (don’t purport to), but, there must be one?
Drove through there today…I don’t think it’s too aweful bad compared to prior years.
Greenville to Jackman
There was once a law on the books referred to as the “pothole law” which made the municipality liable for damages after the first complaint was filed. This law probably still exits and it did allow a period of time (maybe, 24 hours) for municipalities to repair the pothole or to place warning signs. Going down a pothole even at a reasonable rate of speed has the potential to damage tires and alignment which are costly repairs to our vehicles. If still on the books, local associations could be formed to ensure compliance and to make municipalities accountable; however, in a drastically different form than observed in Sanford, Florida.
Hey, MBTA take your pick, all the roads in Maine are bad.
I am going to disagree about all the roads in Maine being bad condition. I live in Biddeford – the roads overall in this area are good if not great shape. A note to those who travel the Maine Turnpike the bridge over the Saco River is being repaired I have not encountered any major back ups in either direction. However Route 295 in South Portland and Portland is a Huge mess in terms of how the repair work is being done.Route 295 is down right nasty in places to drive.
Wouldn’t be easier just to mail the 49.9 cents a gallon tax to MBTA for the road repairs than to have it go through the government and wind up with a half a penny once all the bureaucrats get paid off?
You want to find lousy roads in Maine? Get a map of Maine, close your eyes, and point. Viola, a lousy road!!!!!
Let’s borrow some more money from China and get em fixed.
The main reason our roads and highways are in such bad shape and will continue to be. Is because they weren’t built properly in the first place. You can’t just have a dirt road and throw 6″ of gravel on it and a layer of asphalt and expect it to last. What this state has been doing is slapping bandaids on just that type of road. Pouring good money after bad,
Well, what do you expect when you put these jobs out to bid and always choose the lowest bidder? I-295 between Brunswick and Gardiner last as long as it did before the rebuild a couple years back because it was built “right” the first time. I’m sure the rebuild won’t last anywhere near as long as the original concrete surface.
The contractors are bidding on what the state specifications are for the road. We live in frost heave country and the roads need to be built appropriately for the weather conditions with excellent drainage. What was and still is called the whales back on Rt.9 was redone back in the 70’s. It doesn’t heave or have any problems. It was repaved about 10 years ago but really didn’t need it then.
“You can’t just have a dirt road and throw 6″ of gravel on it and a layer of asphalt and expect it to last.”
Then let 100,000 pound ++ loaded log trucks run over it :-/ and those trucks paying the taxes that they do is a real travesty IMHO …
As I read through this article, I couldn’t help but think about the newly proposed building of the East-West Road. Why do we have money to study and likely build a questionably unneeded road but have no money to fix existing roads in major disrepair? And there ARE many roads around our State that are in need of major repair. I commend MBTA and its director Maria Fuentes for taking the bull by the horns.
This whole article is sad. That we the tax payers have to enter an
essay contest in order to get our road fixed.
Try keeping your vehicle on your side of the road when you drive in Town Hill. That has been very dangerous for very many years. Where does all the money go that we pay when we register our vehicles and pay a gas tax, I thought it was for road repair…Oh no wait, they must throw that money into the “GENERAL FUND” just like everything else that does not get designated too.
That was a jb deal then bond for roads after stealing road money
I for one would love to figure out the percentage of money that we pay as Maine-er’s on fuel ,cars ,excise and registrations that actually goes into the roads. Ideally a dollar paid in should amount to a dollar to roads. we all know it doesn’t, but what are the real numbers? I have seen articles where legislators were removing road funding to go somewhere else in the budget. gas tax should only go to roads, that’s what it was promised to do and I’m not seeing the dollar in dollar out figures. can anyone hear that siphoning sound? anyone have any Idea?
Raise the gas tax. To cover the true costs of driving, gas should cost about twice as much as it does now. The most effective dollar spent on roads is a dollar spent on improving public transportation. Yesterday’s Sunday NY Times, Perspectives section, has an excellent forum on this topic.
I would go for a raised gas tax only if the funds were tied to the roads, currently all it would do would be to increase the size of the cookie jar that the legislature currently can’t keep out of. New York city public transport systems currently will not work in Maine. we do not have the person per sq-mile that they do nor the capital to fund such a system. I used to have conservation plates and proudly kept them on all vehicles, until the legislature in their infinite wisdom took the moneys destined for fish and game and applied it somewhere else. Betrayed I immediately got rid of all “special” plates I had and just go with the basics required by law. My trust is earned and I was very disappointed. Now they have to earn it back. Money paid, or funding increased for roads,had better be going to roads. right now I’m not seeing it.
I don’t let my dog go on the NY Times
That’s a reasonable choice, because your dog’s waste disposal orifices (probably) can’t read.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
if the feds would give the states a couple billion dollers instead of sending it away then we might have good roads.