Maine during peak summer has grown too big for its britches. At least, too big for its highways or byways or waterways or airways.

As heavily as Maine depends on summer visitors, transportation planners better solve some of these traffic problems or have the state’s tourism coffers – and its reputation – ruined.

The old Maine saying “you can’t get there from here” has been replaced by “you can get there, but it will take you an extra hour or two.” Almost an hour at a toll booth, an hour for road construction on Route 1A in Dedham, or an hour in lane-narrowing at Augusta, or a half-hour for bridge construction at Verona, or back-ups for construction in Ellsworth, or the dreaded Route 3 toward Mount Desert Island where bumper cars isn’t a game at the Blue Hill Fair but rather a way of life during July and August.

Maine invites folks to come visit: come see the way life should be, come experience the simple beauty, the quiet, the taste, the smell, the shops, the restaurants, the campgrounds, the inns, the tours.

Yet, vacationers are finding the going rougher and rougher each year. Volume traffic is the main complaint – not the iffy weather than can change from fog and cool to humid and hot, but the traffic inching along Maine’s two-lane roads at a pace that tries people’s patience. After all, they left Philadelphia, D.C., Houston, New York, or whatever megalopolis to sneak into Maine where they could breathe the air, sail the harbors, bike the winding streets.

But, nowadays, everybody has the same idea. Try flying into Bangor. Try driving from Augusta. Try visiting Camden. Try getting onto High Street in Ellsworth from a side road. Try driving to Bernard from Trenton on a busy summer day. Try parking in Winter Harbor. Try finding a boat slip in Northeast Harbor, let alone launching a boat. Try finding rail service from Boston to Bangor, or ferry service from Hancock Point to the east’ard, as in olden days when Maine’s summer folk stayed for the whole season, not just the day or week.

It’s getting pretty crowded when you can’t find a parking space on Schoodic Point … or an open stretch of road from Blue Hill to Cherryfield or on the causeway from Deer Isle to Stonington. Talk about Sunshine and Sunset.

This summertime traffic situation is just that disparate.

Local folks debate bypasses through downtown areas because of economic fears from merchants. Other Mainers are wary of road widening to accommodate motorists or bicyclists just as Warren and Thomaston fought the widening to protect their historic trees.

After all, call something a scenic byway if you will, but how scenic will it be when old maple trees that line it are felled?

Maine’s popularity increases; there’s a mystique that beckons strangers just as lighthouses flash their signals or buoys clang their bells. Maine’s soaring numbers of visitors are here to stay.

The problem is the people are not here to stay but rather coming and going.

And the state needs to keenly focus on its transportation system – water, land, air – to satisfy not only its paying customers who come through the various turnstiles but, more importantly, its year-round residents whose loyalty to Maine should be reciprocated.