CALAIS, Maine — Because of emergency repairs being done to the Milltown railroad crossing, the Milltown border crossing between Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, will be unavailable for use until about 4 p.m. Tuesday, July 17.
All passenger cars are instructed to use alternate ports of entry in the Calais-St. Stephen area, according to a press release issued Monday afternoon by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The Ferry Point port of entry is approximately one mile downstream and is available to all passenger vehicles and pedestrians, according to the release. The International Avenue port of entry is approximately one mile upstream and is available to all passenger vehicles and commercial trucks.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection release indicated that appropriate staff levels will be in place at the alternate ports to process the increase in traffic as expeditiously as possible.
For information on port hours and wait times, visit the CBP Border Wait Times website.
Three crossings in a two mile span! Why keep them all open? I forgot, we are not allowed to question Homeland Insecurity.
If you lived in Calais you might understand.
I live 20 miles away and have crossed at each of the crossings many times. The new “City unto itself” crossing should be very capable of handling the traffic is Miltown is closed. It does have about 8 lanes, though they only staff one or two, it seems. If we need crossings for locals to use, shouldn’t Baring, Baileyville, Princeton, and Township get their own “little hometown crossings? Convenience is nice, but it can be a bit expensive for the rest of the taxpayers when two other crossings are just a mile away. So, I guess you need to explain your comment and not just throw a “if you lived here you might understand” out. Maybe if you could see beyond the little gas station at the corner, you might understand why some people hate having their tax dollars spend on frivolities.
Agreed, If the new border crossing was qucker. Unfortunately, if you used the new crossing many times, you would know that they are slower than snails, to put it mildly. For whatever reason, it takes some of the officers at the new bridge an inordinate amount of time to determine if someone is a threat to the USA.
There is such a thing as doing your job and then going way overboard. Most of the locals would use the new bridge but believe it or not, they might have something important to get to and don’t wish to be stuck.
You are correct that they shouldn’t have 3 crossings in Calais. Virtually everyone in the area will tell you that it should have been built at the end of the Airline but that is crying over spilt milk.
And we wonder why rail service is dieing.
It may be a huge operation run by a skeleton crew but it serves a purpose for trucks going from Canada to Bangor and beyond. It also keeps the “Killer Bees” out of downtown Calais. That said, it also impededs the good idea with a donut of a traffic circle and not enough manpwer from what I hear. Close the Milltown crossing and make a real traffic circle instead of a Lego-Land style.