Clair – Fort Kent Bridge, International road bridge at Saint John River between Maine and New Brunswick.
The Clair-Fort Kent Bridge is a steel structure spanning 221 meters across the Saint John River with three sections that connect the communities. It serves as the main road link between Fort Kent in Maine and Clair in New Brunswick.
A cable ferry and a cable suspension footbridge opened in 1905; the steel truss bridge that replaced them was built in 1929–30, with three through-truss spans of 73.15 m each. After a 2.7-ton weight limit was imposed in January 2011, a replacement was announced; the new bridge opened on July 31, 2014, and demolition of the old span began that September.
The crossing links Clair, New Brunswick, and Fort Kent, Maine, the town where the Saint John River forms the International Boundary. The bridge carries Route 205 on the Canadian side and Route 161 and US 1 on the American side, so drivers pass between two countries in a few hundred metres.
The crossing is open 24 hours a day, so drivers can pass between Clair and Fort Kent at any time. The bridge carries Route 205 on the New Brunswick side and connects to Route 161 and US 1 in Maine. Around 2,000 cars use it daily, and the Canadian border station, a two-story brick building from about 1955, still handles traffic.
The bridge marks the northern terminus of U.S. Route 1, which runs along the entire East Coast of America. This makes it a symbolically important point for travelers exploring the country's longest coastal highway.
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