Can you commute to Brewer from the coast area (Freeport: live, store)

[MEbound700]

What is the commute like to Brewer from the coast areas? is it possible? does anybody do it? how bad does it get in the summer?

THANKS

[deerislesmile]

Which coastal areas? Belfast? Bar Harbor? It makes a difference which coastal town/area you are commuting from.

[Acadianlion]

Not only will it depend on where you are commuting from, it will depend on what time you are doing the commuting. In the winter commuting from Ellsworth can take an hour and sometimes considerably more depending on the weather and whether or not you are commuting around seven in the morning. In the summer the commute can take as long as that depending on the traffic in and through Ellsworth, and whether you are commuting during the peak morning "drive time".

If you are commuting from Mt. Desert Island, which includes Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor and the other little towns on "the island", add one hour to that time.

Allow as much as two hours from Blue Hill and another half hour or so from Deer Isle and Stonington.

Probably the easiest and fastest commuting time would be from Bucksport where the route would be to follow the river directly through Hamden.

That's what commuting from the "coastal area" to Brewer is, assuming that the commute begins in Hancock County.

Some will say that the commute times aren't that long. And they well may not be all the time. The issue is that Ellsworth is astride the route from Mt. Desert Island, Blue Hill, DeerIsle and Stonington, although from the Blue Hill peninsula area you can go up through Bucksport. In Ellsworth, it has become a city pledge to make travel through the city as difficult and long as possible so that every car moving through Ellsworth will see the store sign of EVERY store in Ellsworth in case you have an extra dollar to give to an Ellsworth merchant. It makes traveling through Ellsworth an exercise in motorist pain and suffering. I live four miles from the center of Ellsworth, and know whereof I speak.

I think the poster is thinking that the summer traffic is what make the commute to Brewer from the coast difficult. I disagree. The winter commute is what can be truly problematic, because from the coast to Brewer you can encounter two completely different kinds of weather. When it is raining along the cost, once you start to climb up the hills through the Lucerne area, the rain will turn to freezing rain and often times nasty, slippery wet snow, and the travel from the hills into Brewer can become very slow and difficult. So also commuting from the Blue Hill area. I think it is easier to make the trip from Belfast to Brewer as the road through Frankfort and then to Hamden past the Academy is a usually very well sanded in the worst of the weather and tourist traffic is usually not heavy during commuting time.

[Maineah]

I commuted every day for two years from Freeport to Camden. It was a long drive but I liked my job as a craft brewer so I made the drive. It paid off when I found a head brewing position closer to home.
Would I do it again?? Probably not now with gas at $3.00 a gallon. Gas was $1.50 back then.

[Nor'Eastah]

I guess it's settled then. Ya can't get thayah from heah.