New Brunswick Roads - Old NB 95

Former NB 95


Okay, here's the story. The border crossing here started out as NB 5, connecting to US 2 in Maine. At some time during or after I-95 was built in Maine, New Brunswick responded with NB 95, still tying into the old border crossing. NB 95, despite its high number, was considered a primary highway, so NB 5 was downgraded to secondary status and renumbered to NB 150. At this stage, 95 (just a two-lane road, but a high-quality one) and 150 met just shy of the border. US 2 proceeded, and traffic quickly got onto I-95 from there. According to an old topographic map, I-95 may have been built with stubs leading up to the border in anticipation of a future upgraded crossing station. Sometime after 1983, a new customs station was built on the I-95 stub, and NB 95 was completed into the new station. At this time, the old station closed, and US 2 was rerouted to end at I-95 instead of vice versa. At about the same time, secondary NB 150 was downgraded to tertiary NB 555, the current number. NB 555 was routed away from the now-closed border station and up to NB 95. This left a pair of stubs: the old NB 5/150 alignment to the old border crossing, and the newer but now former NB 95 alignment to the old crossing. (On the US side, there's no stub, just a fence in front of the old border station.) Recently, NB 95 was dualized in its entirety as a freeway back to TCH 2, cutting off the former NB 555 intersection (the one that was just constructed 20 years prior). NB 555 was truncated back to NB 540 to avoid what became the third dead-end created by the modern NB 95 alignment.

When I came to this area, unfortunately the sun had just shone its last trace of light above the horizon. I drove down former 5/150/555 and kept left on old 5/150 to the old border crossing, but that road has been repurposed as a residential dead-end. There's just about no trace of it ever having been a major international link. I came up to the other crossing road, old NB 95, and that's where I found a few items I'd consider photo-worthy. The road here was basically just abandoned in situ, allowing traffic on it so long as the road continues to exist. In fact, there's a trail that leads off the end of this road to the left, and appears to head right across the border to the old Customs station. I'm sure it is in fact used by locals to explore the old building, since Canada doesn't seem to mind the occasional border jumper, but I wasn't about to find out where it led.


This is the condition of the old road. Not repaved since the 1980's, the cracks in the concrete beneath have sprouted vegetation through the asphalt above.


This is as far as a car can go, as the beginning of a median guiderail juts out of the bushes to divide traffic for the upcoming now-defunct Customs stop. The stripes are in quite good condition for more than 20 years of Canadian weather.


The only sign on the old alignment, facing what would be EB traffic if it had anywhere to come from. The road to the right is a connector down to the old 5/150 alignment, otherwise just a local road.

Past the old border crossing to US 2
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