The Maine East-West Highway - Bring It On!

I travel often from PEI to Toronto. There's three basic routes you can take.

1. The Canadian Route. From PEI, this route goes west through New Brunswick and then heads north up to Riviere-du-Loup, west across to Quebec City, and then south down to Montreal. The route through New Brunswick has been vastly improved in the past five years. The Trans-Canada has been straightened and upgraded to four-lanes, and, joy of joys, the speed limit is 110kph (65+mph).

This is the easiest and quickest route.

2. The US Route. You travel west through New Brunswick, head south to Bangor (via either US 95 or US Hwy 9) and then crawl along US Hwy 2. It's scenic and you pass through interesting New England towns, but it's a crawl. You go to Burlington Vermont, then pass into New York State and travel along secondary highways until you reach Cornwall Ontario. Then you hook up with Ontario's Hwy 401 and travel along a very boring stretch at a brain-numbing speed of 100kph (62mph).

This is the scenic take-your-time route.

3. The Hybrid Route. You take the US Route as far as Skowhegen, Maine. Then you head north cross-country to Coburn Gore, Maine where you cross into Quebec. You take secondary roads in Quebec for about 100km until you reach Hwy 10. From there you head to Montreal and join up with the rest of the Canadian route.

This route takes less time than the US Route, but you still have to navigate through Montreal, which can be harrowing.

For the past 50 years, people have been talking about an East-West route through northern Maine. Now, private developers are trying to make it happen. They say it would knock two hours off of the drive from Saint John New Brunswick and Montreal.

I say, "bring it on!".

And that's the way the traveling Ball bounces.

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3318