Technical Glitch Is Shortening Timeline for Seawall Road Repairs.
Mar 25, 2026
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Maine Seacoast Mission.
MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—There aren’t any big paving projects planned by Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) in the Mount Desert Island region for this year, but that doesn’t mean that the department doesn’t have projects scheduled for the future or know that town administrators believe there are road needs in their communities.
For Mount Desert Town Manager Alex Kimball, one of the places of concern is between RA Corner (intersection of Route 198 and Route 233) and Babson Brook.
“We’re starting to get into accidents and stuff because it’s getting that bad,“ he said. “So, I mean, it’s getting that bad there.”
That night, at the Southwest Harbor Select Board meeting, Town Manager Karen Reddersen told her Select Board members about the discussion.
“I mean safety issues . . . because the potholes are so bad in some areas, going into opposing lanes of traffic, and so it’s very serious, and so that’s something that we’re beating the drum on, so I just wanted to share that,” Reddersen said. “There were some specific targeted areas that were referenced that are in significant disrepair.”
Potholes, paving schedules, ferries: MaineDOT’s Regional Transportation Planner Jarod Farn-Guillette quickly spoke to them all during the League of Towns meeting, March 24. However, he can’t make promises, but he’ll relay the information to his superiors in the department.
Farn-Guillette said he’d take Kimball’s suggestion and drive through that area that day. Farn-Guillette was on Mount Desert Island to talk to administrators from Mount Desert Island area towns who met at the Acadia National Park Headquarters and via Zoom.
There are few key spots of concern, Kimball said.
“The other is, just as you get onto the island, if you’re coming straight, there’s about mile right ahead of the island that’s in particularly bad shape. And the reason I say this is what you start to see is people go into oncoming traffic to avoid the potholes. It’s a concern,” Kimball said.
“I’ll take a look at that,” Farn-Guillette said and report it back. He also said that municipalities can have temporary, no-cost installations that can delineate local transportation problems. Municipalities can keep those on loan.
PAVING SCHEDULE
Farn-Guillette also discussed a paving schedule for the Route 3 corridor.
Route 3—the corridor between Ellsworth and Mount Desert Island which then turns toward Bar Harbor proper—is a state-owned road, which means that upgrades, work, and maintenance are all controlled by the state. There will be some ditching and jointage work being done on Route 3, particularly in downtown Bar Harbor, Farn-Guillette said.
Attendees learned that for this summer, there will just mostly be preparation for paving in 2027.
“Maybe I’ve got some good news and bad news,” Farn-Guillette told those gathered. “Most of the paving that will be scheduled for 233, Route 3, and I believe some stuff on 102 . . . it’s going to be 2027.”
Tremont Town Manager Jesse Dunbar suggested that something the regional group of administrators could do is create a regional transportation plan, which could be an agreement of priority for regional DOT paving projects.
“I think a lot of times we get the brunt of the actual conditions of the road and the residents having to deal with the roads, and then the DOT from Augusta puts out their paving plan and a lot of us are left going, ‘Why are they paving?’” Dunbar said. “You know, last year—I think it was last year—was a great example when they repaved 102 between Somesville and Southwest. That theoretically could be considered the best stretch of pavement on the island. And everybody said, ‘Why are they repaving that?’ ‘Well, because it was on the schedule.’ So I just think it would be a great idea, if we get to that point, that this group can at least give something to the DOT when they do their schedule, that we all agree that this road in Bar Harbor is a priority, followed by this road in Mount Desert, by this road in Tremont, and so on and so forth.”
This, Dunbar said, would be helpful since the town staff are the ones that get the phone calls daily about roads and deal with the roads daily by driving on them.
Farn-Guillette said the state has a pavement preservation cycle that is an algorithm that the department’s policy is based on.
There are possible big projects this year, but they don’t deal with paving those state roads.
“We do have scheduled bridge pier upgrades going on for the ferries,” he said, scheduled for the 2026-2027 work plan, but those could shift depending on contractors.
SEAWALL ROAD
In 2024, after months of closure due to powerful winter storms that decimated the Seawall Road, the state agreed to let local businesses voluntarily do a temporary fix to get the road—beloved by MDI residents and tourists—back in working order.
Those community fixes to the looping road which joins Southwest Harbor to Tremont and also to Acadia National Park’s Seawall Campground, Ship Harbor Trail, and Wonderland Trail are considered temporary.
Since then, there’s been back and forth between the town, Park, and MaineDOT about how to pay for permanent repairs and upkeep.
In June, Acadia National Park received “supplemental funding from Congress to fund storm-related damages and is working with the state to fully fund the resiliency improvements at Seawall Road,” Southwest Harbor Town Manager Karen Reddersen wrote in her manager’s report at the time.
Now the issue is getting the funds to the proper place so the work can happen.
“As you know, we have set up an agreement with MDOT to reconstruct 1500 feet, and place the culvert in this area we know about,” Acadia National Park Management Assistant John T. Kelly said. “The agreement’s in place. Funding’s in place. Everything’s in place but for our financial assistance office is unable for some technical reason to be able to put the announcement into Grant Solutions so that the state can submit an application that’s done to issue the notice of award. We’ve been on this for weeks and it’s obviously getting pretty tight to get work done before July.”
Kelly said the park has done everything they can. On the DOT side, Farn-Guillette said that it’s been elevated to agency leadership.
“It’s super frustrating, but it’s some kind of glitch in the system,” Farn-Guillette said.
Reddersen asked what the drop-dead time frame would be before the work is moved to the fall. That was unknown and would depend on the bidding process, availability of contractors, and other factors such as ground temperature.
TRAFFIC LIGHTS
Traffic lights meant to be in sequence down the Route 3 corridor from Ellsworth to the head of Mount Desert Island are also not going to happen this year.
“Those are still pretty far out on scheduling. They’re not even past preliminary design, nothing’s been out to bid yet,” Farn-Guillette said. “So I wouldn’t anticipate any major changes coming up right away.”
“Is this the sequencing of lights?” Kelly confirmed.
“Yeah, sequencing and some possible intersection redesigns at the head of the island. They’re looking at some options. So those are probably ‘27, ‘28 realistically that we’d have engineering to share,” Farn-Guillette said.
He doesn’t anticipate any major changes about sequencing the lights and also the possible redesign of the intersection at the head of the island in 2027-2028.
Traffic at the head of the island on Route 3 has been discussed for years both by individual towns and by the League of Towns. It’s now also part of the work of the Bar Harbor Sustainable Tourism Task Force.
Back in 2023, Bar Harbor Planning Director Michele Gagnon wrote in her report to the town councilors, “With all the traffic and congestion, road rage and accidents experienced this summer, we were curious to see what the traffic counts looked like at the head of the island.”
Crash data for the accidents or incidents of road rage were not included in the report.
Traffic counts show an increase of just under 1,000 on the average January workday in 2010 compared to January 2023. During that same time period, an average August workday showed an increase of just under 3,000.
Gagnon had said the peak hours in January are between 6-7 a.m. and then 3 p.m. in the afternoon. The peaks in August occur later in the morning and then again at 3-4 p.m.
The average workday has more traffic than the weekend. The morning peak traffic is also more than the afternoon peak traffic. However, the data is coming from the traffic light at the beginning of the island. In the morning, not all vehicles funnel through that light. They do in the afternoon.
SAFETY ACTION PLAN
Possibly redesigning the intersection at the head of Mount Desert Island, which was mentioned by Farn-Guillette is also in Bar Harbor’s Safe Streets plan. The plan’s goal is to stop all death and major injuries related to vehicles.
Bar Harbor received the Safe Streets for All Planning Grant in 2022, which awarded the town with over $200,000 to support the creation of a Transportation Safety Action Plan. The town has contracted with Stantec to assist with the Safety Action Plan creation process.
The project is funded by the United State Department of Transportation. There’s a national push to reduce series injury and fatal crashes. The goal was to collect the data, create a draft plan, present it to the public. The next step in that plan is to create changes that will make those walking, driving, biking, skateboarding, and scootering on the streets safer.
For every 100,000 people, Hancock County sees 18 vehicular-related deaths. Between 2016 and 2020 there were 49 fatal accidents in Hancock County. Those are overall accidents, not just pedestrian and vehicle or bicycle and vehicle.
The Maine DOT’s Route 3 Corridor Project has a draft safety mobility plan from Ellsworth to the head of the island.
Bar Harbor’s draft plan calls for a striped bike lane through the intersection, review of the traffic light’s timing and looking at potential sidewalks and pedestrian ways through the intersection.
Bar Harbor’s long-term solutions suggested by the plan includes turning one intersection into a roundabout (also called a rotary or traffic circle).
“That is in draft form,” Farn-Guillette said. Bar Harbor and Ellsworth both have grant plans. Now, the state will look at those plans and look to see if there is any overlap.
A big difference between the DOT’s internal work and Bar Harbor’s Vision Zero (Safe Streets) plan is that the state’s is much dryer and less ready for public consumption, Farn-Guillette said. The DOT is working with other departments to make it ready for that public consumption. He anticipates he’ll be back in the busier months to talk about that.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Has Region Hit Maximum Capacity? Some Officials Say Yes
Acadia, MaineDOT Advance $1.5M Seawall Road Reconstruction Plan
Town of Bar Harbor’s Bar Harbor Vision Zero draft plan.
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