State Route 5 (abbreviated SR 5) is a state highway in Maine that runs from an intersection with
State Route 9 in
Old Orchard Beach
Old Orchard Beach is a resort town and census-designated place (CDP) in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 8,960 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Portland− South Portland−Biddeford, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Ar ...
, to an intersection with
State Route 120 in
Andover.
Route description
From its southern terminus near the Pier in Old Orchard Beach, SR 5 leaves the town to the west, going towards the neighboring city of
Saco. The route runs northwest from Saco, passes very briefly through a Northwest corner of
Biddeford, and intersects
US 202 (US 202) near the
Lyman-
Waterboro line. SR 5 runs
concurrently with US 202 for a short distance to East Waterboro.
Between Waterboro and
Cornish, SR 5 is known as the Sokokis Trail. North of Cornish, the highway follows the
Saco River
The Saco River (Abenaki: ''Sαkóhki'') is a river in northeastern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine in the United States. It drains a rural area of of forests and farmlands west and southwest of Portland, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean ...
, crossing it at
Hiram, to the town of
Fryeburg. SR 5 continues north through
Lovell to
Bethel, where it intersects
US 2
U.S. Route 2 or U.S. Highway 2 (US 2) is an east–west U.S. Highway spanning across the northern continental United States. US 2 consists of two segments connected by various roadways in southern Canada. Unlike some routes, whi ...
. The two routes run together along the
Androscoggin River
The Androscoggin River ( Abenaki: ''Aləssíkαntekʷ'') is a river in the U.S. states of Maine and New Hampshire, in northern New England. It is U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, ...
to Rumford Point in the town of
Rumford, where SR 5 leaves to the north. It follows parallel to the west bank of the
Ellis River to the route's end in Andover.
History
As designated in 1925, SR 5 was a longer route than it is today, originally terminating in
South Arm near the southern part of Lower Richardson Lake. In 1980, it was cut back to its current northern terminus in Andover at the intersection with SR 120.
In the early 1980s,
Interstate 195 (I-195) was being constructed in Saco, partially over the existing alignment of SR 5. The route was shifted alongside I-195 and partially cosigned with
US 1
U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making ...
. This remains the routing today.
Junction list
Former auxiliary route
State Route 5A was a short loop off Route 5 in
Lovell. It functioned as an eastern bypass of downtown and connected to SR 5 at both ends. It was designated in 1960 and was removed from the route logs in 2003. It is now an unnumbered road.
References
External links
*{{commons category inline
Maine State Route log via floodgap.com: Maine State Route 5
005
''005'' is a 1981 arcade game by Sega. They advertised it as the first of their RasterScan Convert-a-Game series, designed so that it could be changed into another game in minutes "at a substantial savings". It is one of the first examples of a ...
Transportation in York County, Maine
Transportation in Cumberland County, Maine
Transportation in Oxford County, Maine