Dec. 28—A $9.3 million federal grant secured by the state of Maine could be key to reducing collisions along a specific stretch of road in Caribou long known to be the site of crashes and near-misses between cars and animals.
Caribou City Manager Penny Thompson said local people know to slow down along a certain stretch of Routes 1 and 164, known locally as Main Street, especially after dark.
“I almost hit a deer” is a common refrain among Caribou drivers, she said.
“If you live here, you kind of know where the bad areas are for animals,” Thompson said on a Thursday phone call. “We’re watching for that. We tell our kids, ‘Be careful, there’s that place where there’s always deer.'”
After her shift at City Hall, Thompson said, she occasionally drives south to Presque Isle to pick up late-night groceries. But there have been times she put off the errand to avoid driving on the dark, wildlife-heavy roads.
Those stretches of road are home to a high number of deer and moose collisions, according to the Maine Department of Transportation. In a 2003-2023 study of the area, a 2-mile stretch surrounding the culverts saw at least 127 collisions, with the majority taking place on Route 1.
But such crashes are believed to be underreported nationally, and local game wardens estimate that there are at least a dozen wildlife collisions per year at the Route 164 crossing, according to the grant application.
MORE THAN MOOSE
State officials hope the grant will not only reduce collisions but also help conserve a threatened species of trout that lives in Prestile Brook.
“When you build a structure that’s big enough for a moose to go through it, there’s a lot of other species that benefit,” Justin Schlawin, program coordinator of the wildlife department’s Beginning with Habitat program, said Thursday.
That money, plus $2.3 million paid by the department, will go toward replacing the culverts under Routes 1 and 164, which each cross the brook about a half a mile from each other.
The existing culverts are old and narrow, leaving them vulnerable to potential failure and unable to provide appropriate water flow, the department said in its application.
The brook flows into the Aroostook River, but the existing culverts are perched, meaning they sit above the surface of the water, making it difficult or impossible for fish to swim upstream.
“The fish that are in Prestile Brook are not really connected down to the Aroostook River,” Schlawin said.
In his letter of support, Schlawin noted that the stream is home to a local brook trout population, which is among the highest conservation priority species in the Maine Wildlife Action Plan.
IMPROVED DRAINAGE
Expanding the culvert should also improve drainage during periods of heavy precipitation, which have historically left that stretch of Route 164 flooded.
“When they’re (culverts) too small, they can get easily overwhelmed in flood events,” said Nick Lund, advocacy and outreach manager at Maine Audubon. “That’s when you get roads washing out, and that’s where you get culverts failing.”
On Route 164, the existing culvert will be replaced with a pre-cast concrete arch, measuring roughly 30 feet wide, 17 feet tall and 96 feet long according to the application. That concrete tunnel will include a “simulated natural stream” and a raised shelf large enough to support moose and deer.
The precise plan for Route 1 is still in development, with design slated to kick off in May 2026, the department said.
Both crossings are expected to take about a year to build, with the Route 164 project concluding in early 2027 and the Route 1 build concluding in late 2029, the department said.
Lund said it’s important to make wildlife crossings appear as natural as possible: “Make it seem to wildlife and the fish that the stream is not interrupted by human interference.”
That makes it more likely to be used by wildlife, he said. But Lund said it “doesn’t take much” to convince wildlife to travel at well-planned crossings.
“Streams are natural corridors for wildlife,” he said. “Plus, animals know that roads are not safe. … Once it’s found that there’s a crossing, wildlife will use it. You don’t really need to encourage them at all.”
Maine is already home to a number of wildlife crossings, but the Caribou project is bigger than most, said Eric Ham, senior environmental manager at the DOT.
Ham said the size of a crossing is largely determined by the specific site’s features. Both Routes 1 and 164 are relatively high above the stream, giving these crossings extra room for a larger arch.
Crossings that are wider than the natural stream allow for more gradual shorelines with room for vegetation, making them more attractive to wildlife, Lund said.
ANIMAL CROSSING
Deer accounted for the vast majority of animal crashes in Maine between 2018 and 2022, according to a five-year study by the Department of Transportation. Maine saw nearly 30,000 such collisions in that time, with more than 6,600 deer crashes in 2022 alone.
Though Aroostook County, where the project is located, saw deer crashes roughly in line with the rest of the state, it saw the highest number of moose crashes among the counties, with 575 reported over that period.
The average cost of repairs after hitting a deer is $1,840, and moose collisions average about $4,000, according to estimates by AAA. Usually, the animal that is struck dies during or shortly after the crash, the agency said.
Maine was one of 16 recipients — 15 states and the Pueblo of Santa Ana tribe — selected for this round of federal funding, the second in the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program, the national Department of Transportation said in a written statement. The pilot was created as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and makes $350 million available through fiscal year 2026.
The projects are intended to “reduce collisions between drivers and wildlife, create places for wildlife to safely move over and under highways, and help preserve American life and property,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a written statement.
City Manager Thompson said the project is larger than anything Caribou could pull off on its own and thanked the state transportation department for its help securing the money and partnership on the planning and construction.
“A lot of times, when you live in Aroostook County, you kind of feel forgotten, our challenges,” Thompson said. “But we do feel that there are several state agencies that do work hard to make sure that rural Maine is also still considered an important investment.”
While Thompson is confident the new crossings will help improve driver and wildlife safety, she said their impacts may be hard to notice.
“I think the proof will be if there’s a reduction in the accidents,” she said. “But also a reduction in the police letting us know that there’s a lot of animals traveling in that area, or our loved ones — seeing them at the end of a long day and them saying ‘Oh my gosh, I almost hit a deer.'”
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