 |
|
![[The Orono Bog Boardwalk. A one-mile walk literally on boards, the 616 acre bog is believed to be approximately 11,200 years old. The depth can be up to 25 feet.]](385bog.jpg "[The Orono Bog Boardwalk. A one-mile walk literally on boards, the 616 acre bog is believed to be approximately 11,200 years old. The depth can be up to 25 feet.]")
![[Return to RoadsAroundME]](exitik.jpg "[Return to RoadsAroundME]")
The New England Interstate system was a mutually agreed-upon system of
marking interstate and intrastate highways determined by the six New England
states (that is, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut
and Rhode Island), and to a lesser extent New York state east of the Hudson
River.
![[New England Interstate shield.]](../ex-ne.gif "[New England Interstate shield.]")
Instead of the pole highway marking
system that preceded it, the NEIs were actually numbered highways, with
routes under 100 carrying the interstate links and routes 100 and above being
local intrastate routes, on the 11" x 15"
yellow and black signs seen at right (the
white border is for illustration and was not part of the sign itself).
Many of these routes were in fact descended from the
pole highways and auto trails; see
Maine's Pole Highways for their
lineage.
These numbers completely replaced the former system of lettered highways.
Despite the New England Interstate system being inaugurated early in 1922, and almost certainly with input from the Maine State Highway Commission, the routes in Maine did not actually become signed and known to the public until 1925. However, some early maps listed the already-determined routings, with some of these maps dating back as early as 1923 despite little or no official physical signage in the field. Understandably, there is some argument in early maps about routings, particularly for NEI 1, NEI 18, NEI 20 and NEI 24. On the 1923 Rand McNally auto trails map, NEI 20 is seen starting in Portland and going to Gray, Auburn, Monmouth, Augusta, Belgrade, Rome, Mercer, Norridgewock and finally up its final 1925 routing from there (see below) to Canada via Anson and Bingham; NEI 18 is seen considerably further south of its later routing as US 302, following a routing through Baldwin, Standish and Hiram back to Fryeburg very much like that of modern ME 113. For its part, NEI 24 was on a considerably different routing, running from Brunswick to Gardiner, Augusta, Vassalboro, Clinton, Pittsfield, Newport, Corinna, Dover-Foxcroft, Guilford, Monson and terminating in Greenville. Just a year later, however, NEI 20 and 24 took over their final routings but 1 was shifted to an inland route, leaving the coast at Portland and passing through Lewiston, Augusta, Newport and finally picking up the 1923 and 1925 routing in Bangor; NEI 18 is on the modern US 302 corridor. Interestingly, the 1924 map shows ME 100 signed on the coast on what was NEI 1 just the year before. Although these routings are interesting for conjecture, they are ultimately an academic point as the only official routings were those in 1925 as listed below.
|
All images, photographs and multimedia, unless otherwise stated, are
copyright © 2005-2007 Cameron Kaiser. All rights reserved. All writeups
are copyright © 2005-2007 Cameron Kaiser. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized copying or duplication without express consent of the copyright
holder is strictly prohibited. Please contact the sitemaster to request permission if
you wish to use items from this page.
RoadsAroundME is a part of Floodgap Roadgap. |
![[Main page]](/roadgap/me/exitik.jpg "[Return to the main page]")
|