Summer traffic has Mainers living life in the slow lane

Talk about life in the slow lane.

Mainers normally use this term figuratively – and affectionately – to denote the simple, stress-free, uncluttered, unhurried lives we lead around here most of the time. Nothing to get all lathered up about, we say; it’s just life the way it should be.

Then comes summertime, and the phrase takes on its literal meaning: life in the slow lane.

In the slow lane near Kittery, where vans and trucks, cars and motorcycles are backed up for miles on end. In the slow lane on Route 1, inching bumper-to-bumper through Searsport, Belfast, Rockland. In the slow lane on Route 3 from Trenton to Bar Harbor. In the slow lane on Route 1A from Brewer to Dedham.

In the slow lane of toll booths, in the slow lane of High Street in Ellsworth, in the slow lane of Augusta rotaries, in the slow lane of Old Orchard Beach, in the slow lane of Sebago Lake communities. In the slow lane of turnpike widening construction work. In the slow lane from Freeport to Lucerne.

Why, motoring these roads during July and August is comparable to tapping maple trees in early spring when the sap drips languidly into tin buckets, and there’s just no telling how long it will take to end up with any syrup.

Picking basketfuls of strawberries goes more quickly than driving the highways of Maine during peak tourist – and berry – season.

Of course, we’re talking “state roads,” not county or town roads, which are slow traveling year-round because they meander through all the tiny communities sprinkled across Maine like yard sale signs.

The town roads are generally posted 25 miles-per-hour and are marked by “slow children” warnings here and there. County roads are mostly things of the past, since counties try to pay for as little as they can, passing the buck – and the bills – to the state or the towns.

According to Maine’s legendary writer John Gould, people continue to refer to “state roads” because they remember during World War I days and through the ’20s, the state roads were the ones that were paved.

“In the beginning,” writes Gould, “all highways were laid out and maintained by individual settings and townships. Then came county roads, and Maine’s first highway of more than local importance was the Post Road laid out by Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin soon after the American Revolution.

“Older people in York County still refer to portions of old Route One as the Post Road. Establishment of the state highway department came late in Maine’s road program, so it was natural to distinguish town, county, and state routes.”

No need to distinguish them during summer; they’re all slowpoke lanes.

And no wonder that Warren residents don’t want Route 1 widened through their town. It won’t make one dent in relieving the traffic congestion, but it surely would ruin some fine shade trees along the way.