Route 1A Through Hampden, Maine is an Absolute Nightmare Right Now

It's actually been much worse before.

I don't remember exactly what year it was, but for a hot minute, Hampden had three of its four main ways into town, choked out with road work. It was almost impossible to get in or out of town. It felt like a bad dream all the time. Luckily, it's not that bad at the moment. But it ain't great either.

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If you're anything like me, you'll go to the ends of the Earth to avoid road work if you can. I'll either take a different route altogether, or I'll alter my normal route with a little shortcut if need be. But if you need to do anything on Route 1A in Hampden right now, you're kind of screwed.

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The Main Road is being resurfaced from one end to the other.

I don't think this is limited just to Hampden. It seems it's going to keep right on going into Winterport and eventually through to Frankfort. They've already been ripping things up in Searsport for a couple years, it seems. So maybe it'll stop there. But trying to get from one side of Hampden to the other is nuts.

It starts roughly around where Pat's Pizza is in Hampden, and then extends forward for miles. There are some breaks in the action. It seems like they're doing the work in sections, which makes sense. But in each area where major work is happening, Main Road/1A reduces to one lane.

When will it end?

That's hard to say. And because there's so much traffic through that area, your turn to wait may take a while. I waited in line nearly 15 minutes the other day because I forgot and wanted to just mix things up on my way to the grocery store. The traffic alone makes it feel like it takes longer than it should.

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Hampden is also paving many side roads and smaller streets at the same time. the Main Road is a Maine DOT project, as it's a state road. The smaller side roads are being contracted by the town. But either way, if road work is something that just makes you want to run screaming into the night, Hampden is a vampire.