Routes 111 and 196 are primary commuter arteries through Southern and Midcoast Maine. These roads travel through rural and farming countryside. Both roads have undergone upgrades on a variety of safety issues — development growth, growing communities and new traffic signals at four-way intersections, where rural two-lane roads intersect these commuter arteries. 

Twenty-five years ago, many people, including myself, lost a good and learned friend in a head-on collision on Route 196. A Jeep Wagoneer or a Grand Cherokee hit his Volkswagen Jetta. He initially survived, but only for one week. 

Routes 111 and 196 have always reminded me of road racing courses — like Watkins Glen International Raceway in New York or the Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania — zipping along the rolling, curving pavement in the countryside.

The roads are safer, but drivers like to let it all out, as if the four-way intersections don’t exist, or the intersecting rural two-lane roads don’t exist.  On occasion, mostly at night, one may cross paths with a large four-legged animal, with antlers, on either one of these highways.

Dennis Marrotte
Westbrook