Now Taking Applications for the worst road in Maine

What’s the worst road in Maine?

• Facebook contest to identify worst road in Maine draws more than 1,000 fans
  
• More photos/video entries needed before $250 car repair prize awarded
  

What’s the worst road you’ve seen and do you have a photo or video of it? FixMaineRoads.org (or facebook.com/FixMaineRoads) wants to know.

The social media campaign spearheaded by the Maine Better Transportation Association is offering a prize to the best “bad road” photo or video in Maine. If you have a story to tell about a flat tire, destroyed struts or busted rims, even better. Drivers who enter a photo or video and tell their story could win a $250 gift certificate for car repair. ($250 happens to be the amount a recent study by U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, says Mainers pay in extra vehicle repair costs of tires and shock absorbers that are worn out and destroyed by rough and uneven roads.)

“Bad roads are a major concern for Mainers, and that shows by how fast our fan base has grown over the past few weeks,” said Maria Fuentes, MBTA executive director. The topic of bad roads has clearly hit a nerve for many in Maine. Fuentes said that some stretches of road – such as Routes 1 and 191 in Washington County, River Road in Windham and Route 115 in Gray – have earned multiple nominations.

Still, Fuentes says, the contest is wide open because so few drivers have yet to enter photos or videos of their nominated roads. “We have two weeks left in the contest and that, we hope, is plenty of time to get people to start submitting their photos . . .We need to see the evidence of why the road is so bad.”

“We’ve even had people nominate all of the roads in their towns,” said Fuentes. “Our state, in fact, has some of the worst roads and bridges in the region: 26 percent of our federal-aid highways have poor pavement. That’s up from just 5 percent poor pavement in the 1990s.”

The contest will continue until the middle of May. MBTA hopes to award the $250 repair prize to one lucky driver submitting a photo or video and description of “The Worst Road in Maine.” MBTA also will award honorable mentions to two runners up.

MBTA has set up a web page (FixMaineRoads.org), an e-mail address (FixMaineRoads@mbtaonline.org) and a page on the social networking site Facebook (www.facebook.com/FixMaineRoads) where Mainers can get contest information and send their photos and stories about “The Worst Road in Maine.”

For more information, visit FixMaineRoads.org

Don't you think this is just 'hankering' for a Local Flavored photo journalistic reporting kind of story that grabs 'yah' right in the middle of your tickle ribs?

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