Driving In Or Out Of Hampden Can Be A Challenge Right Now

First off.... Let me make it very clear, I hold no animosity toward the men and women who are doing all the road work in Hampden. They're just doing their job. To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure who I should be calling out in this case. But it also doesn't really matter. It is what it is, and nothing I do will change it. But.......

Just about every direction you turn in Hampden, roads are either being flagged, or re-routed, or turned into a one way road. Near as I can tell, there is only one way in or out that doesn't involve some kind of work. If you're coming in on 202, you can bang a right and head towards Newburgh, and vice versa.

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That's it. Route 69 is having bridge work, Main Road has been having bridge work for seemingly the last 1200 years, Western Avenue is turned to one way near the high school, and Hannaford can only be accessed in one direction. Emerson Mill Road has a weird little traffic light on it, having to do with the bridge work on Interstate 95.

Basically, if you anything to do in town, it could be quite a challenge to get to or from there with the current traffic situation. Now in particular, it's going to be crazy to get to Hannaford. Depending on which direction your coming from, you could be diverted as much as a couple miles to get in there, after having to loop back to Coldbrook Road.

In the thread on a post from the Hampden Public Safety Facebook page, many folks have talked about seeing near-accidents, people not knowing where they're going, and other folks driving on the wrong side of the road, trying to get into Hannaford. My wife and I saw such a thing ourselves over the weekend.

Obviously, the work will go on. It's just a bummer it's all happening at once. Hampden is a great little town. And that's why most of us live there. But this road sitch is a bit over-the-top. In the meantime, all we can do is cross our fingers and hope for summer to fly by quickly as possible. But not too quickly....