ISTR there was a project site online some years back, with outlines of proposed alignment options. Not sure how far along they got with it, but apparently it got NIMBYed to death.
This page says a bald eagle's nest was discovered in the ROW, the same thing that, along with cost, put the final nail in the Wiscasset bypass's coffin.
Even without that, cost makes me skeptical if this would ever see the light of day. Maine is poor and cheap. I can't think of any divided highway that's been built since I-95 was finally twinned in Yarmouth & Freeport in 1986, and we may never see one again either. With the possible exception of the Gorham turnpike, but blimey, I can see that being a furshlugginer super-2 too. Or with access via roundabouts or something. But anyway...
Wish I'd saved the PDFs; it'd be good to have this stuff for posterity.
A few hours scouring the net yielded nothing.
...BUT!
What I did find was MDOT's
Vault Plans Archive.
Dig around and you can find some pretty neat stuff.
"Classic" I-95 / modern I-295Other than the Maine Turnpike, the first project of what eventually became I-95 was the US1 Freeport bypass, now part of I-295.
Originally,
Desert (then Merrill?) Rd,
Hunter Rd,
Pownal Rd,
ME136 and
ME125 were at-grade junctions, with signals at Pownal & 136. In 1956-7
(352.9 MB PDF), the Desert Rd interchange was constructed along with a new ME 125/136 interchange, new connecting roads were built and the other crossings were unceremoniously cut off.
The original north end was at today's Exit 24. I'd always wondered how it tied back into existing US1; this can be seen on the last page of
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1550_FI-01-1(1).pdf (38.4 MB).
We can see how that temporary connection was replaced by the modern
(other than the lengthening of the accel/decel lanes) configuration on page 10 of
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1483_I-IN-01-1(8)_II.pdf (69.1 MB). A proposed rest area depicted on page 9 never existed AFAIK.
On the last page, there's a diagram of proposed, never-built interchange at Durham Rd. If this had been built, it would have to have been closed/demolished or reconfigured once time came to extend I-95 north to Topsham, or else a somewhat different configuration would have been needed, to fit the SB US1 connector ramp in.
Note the "60 MPH (Design Speed)". It's posted 65 MPH today.
By 1969, Durham Rd was back on the table.
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1906_unknown_1 (522.5 MB, pp 12-16) shows a mirror image of
one of these. A larger-diameter loop ramp in the SE quadrant is set farther back from the US1 connector, with an apparent auxiliary lane to reduce weaving.
Pp 17-22, 29-30, 34-36 & 67-68 show the missing Exit 23 from the sequential days, River Rd. I woulda expected a folded diamond with the topography there, but anyway.
Why did only River Rd have an exit number reserved, and not Durham Rd? Don't know. Could be that exit numbers came along a bit later, with only River Rd being seriously considered for an interchange at that point.
A
1974 sign plan (42.2 MB) seems to bear that out. There's a dotted line at River but not Durham Rd, and no mention of exit numbers FWIW. Other items of note: apparent confusion over whether ME196 is N/S or E/W, a "yeild" sign
, and a temporary end at US201 while construction continued northward to West Gardiner, to open in 1977. The ME196 interchange had trailblazers to US201, but oddly, no sign assemblies are shown for the US201 junction.
That temporary connection
was reused when I-295 was resurfaced back around 2008-2010ish.
LBNL, it's marked "Revised as Built 1979" and "Completed 1974" -- the year the NMSL took effect -- and chock full of Speed Limit 60 & 70 signs. Approved 1972-12-20 per the first page. I guess the speed limits were just understood to be 55 by go-time, and they just weren't too bothered by that. I dunno man.
US1 corridor, Brunswickhttps://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1357_F-01-1(11).pdf (20.5 MB) details the end of the connector to the Interstate
(the temporary north end of I-95 (till north of Augusta & the Turnpike) until 1973). A lot of properties were condemned where it touches down. Page 8 features a diagram of a flyover that was considsered instead of the treacherous U-turn ramp that was built.
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1718_F-026-1(17)_I_U-026-1(22).pdf (58.4 MB) details the first phase of the the freeway, from US201 to Cooks Corner, that opened in 1964. On page 19 we can see the temporary end at Cooks Corner, in place just a couple years before the rest of the freeway to Bath opened in 1966.
The original 1926 route of US1, Old Bath Rd, intersected then-US1 (today's Bath Rd) at the same point as Thomas Point Rd. A detailed diagram of the junction can be seen on the last 2 pages. It's unclear how
Storer Rd was handled, intersecting right at the railroad crossing. Throw in the brand new freeway connection and relatively new ME24 alignment wicked close by, and that's bound to be a clustercoitus. An overpass was needed anyway, so Old Bath Rd was shifted east, cutting off Grover Lane & Farley Rd (
why's this pavement look so good?) in the process.
The relocation of Bath Rd can also be seen at pages 9, 10 & 18 of
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1276_F-026-1(24)_I.pdf (51.0 MB).
On page 1, I'm pretty sure "King's Turnpike" is erroneous:
The turnpike to Bath, sometimes called Governor King's turnpike, was built in 1805 or 1806.
...
It went through the woods nearly all the way east of Cook's Corner. The road now traveled from Brunswick to Cook's Corner and straight on to the New Meadows River is part of the old turnpike
The turnpike bridge was a few rods south of the railroad bridge.
And, saving the best for last:
WESTBROOK FRIGGIN AHTERIAL BUB!The Westbrook Arterial is Maine's own little I-291, a bypass of ME25 in Portland & Westbrook. Some of it got built, but the original plans were much more ambitious.
After the South Portland route preferred by SoPo, Scarborough & MDOT was chosen for I-295 over the "Westbrook Expressway", Portland & Westbrook got the somewhat scaled-back Westbrook Arterial as a consolation prize. It was slated to run through the Fore River estuary, with environmental concerns continually stalling it until finally, in the early 2000s, the last link to Rand Rd was built, with the rest finally canned for good.
Ramps at I-295 sat unused for decades until eventually repurposed.
Let's start out with
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1545%20Westbrook%201974%20As-Built.pdf (60.2 MB) -- page 26 has an overview of what was actually built back in the 70s, and all that existed for a good quarter century. We can see the context for the infamous "S-curves", which were indeed half a folded diamond interchange at Larrabee Rd. The presense of a parclo instead of a trumpet and that little southern stub suggest there were plans even back then to extend Larrabee Rd southward to Stroudwater St. This idea was still around in the mid-2000s at least, if not a terribly high priority. Of course, gotta have at-grade intersections now `cuz Maine's cheap.
The "95-1" & "95-3" ramp lines are cloverleaf-shaped. Hm. Weird. How would the toll booths have worked?
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/3590_fu-012-1(7).pdf (246.5 MB) is mostly as-built diagrams, but page 1 has a decent-quality image of the entire planned route, all the way from the "intown relief road" (William Clarke Drive) to I-295. YEHGUY!
The first 2 pages of
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/1313_F-012-1(13)_SU-0127(4)_U-012-1(14).pdf (345.0 MB) have lower-quality copies of those same images. Not much to see here. Page 34 confirms "future ramp(s)" 95-1 & 95-3, but what gets me is the "constructed 1975" caption on the centerline. Sure enough, it looks like some wetlands got
filled in, and then just sat for a couple decades.
And now the good stuff -- alternative schematics!
- Line A (13.0 MB). Of note here is that Congress St gets a bypass between Stevens Ave & Frost St (which gets dead-ended) that handles the WBA interchange. Old Congress, new Congress and Stevens would meet up at a 4-way intersection.
- Lines B & B1 (28.4 MB) involve filling in quite a bit of wetland; both would require a rechanneling of the Fore River. And what's that on Line B Sheet 4 going out into/across the Fore River south of Osgood St? I don't get it.
- Line C's (26.5 MB) route isn't terribly clear from this document, but here it is for completeness. You can get a better visual on page 27 of the EIS, available on Google Books. It takes a rather ridiculous detour to provide access to the Portland International Jetport.
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/6280_u-012-1(4).pdf (80.9 MB) mostly features the sections that got built, but depicts the full folded diamond at Larrabee (still just a stub S of the WBA) and a full cloverleaf at I-95.
Again -- how were the tolls supposed to work? Maybe nothing; maybe this is predicated on a toll-free turnpike. The original plan for the Maine Turnpike was for it to become toll-free once the construction bonds were paid off, which IIRC happened in the early 80s. At that time, the MTA changed their minds and decided to keep the revenue stream to pay for maintenance and capital improvements. The EIS mentions a couple more esoteric alignments not really being practical until the Turnpike becomes free, so it appears this was a consideration.
This document looks like it's intended to be viewed/interpreted in conjunction with
https://mdotapps.maine.gov/VaultPlans/5717_i-295-3(12)_full_b.pdf (56.8 MB). Smush`emrightuptogethahbud! This file has all the alignments shown together. Image quality is not the best & it's a bit difficult to read, with the exception of a nice rendering of Exit 5 on the last page. The mystery road out into the Fore River is back. The real item of note here is on page 2, a more northerly alignment of Line B just east of Rand Rd.
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