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Steven E. Barkan is a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Maine.

As a Holden resident and retired University of Maine sociologist, I was very interested in the June 30 article, “Truck traffic has plummeted in Brewer since I-395 connector’s debut.” Citing data collected in August 2025 by the Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) that showed heavy-truck traffic on Routes 9 and 46 decreasing by 60% and 79%, respectively, compared to 2023, the article and Maine DOT credit the connector route with this sharp drop. If so, the connector may have been well worth its $107 million cost.

However, the credit given the connector may be premature for several reasons. First, how many fewer trucks do the percentage drops equal? For example, a drop from 100 trucks to 40 trucks a day is a 60% decrease, but so is a paltry drop from five trucks to two trucks. The percentages sound impressive, but data on the actual numbers of trucks would be much more convincing.

Second, if the connector has accounted for whatever actual number of trucks are now missing from Routes 9 and 46, then all those trucks should instead be traveling the connector route. Yet the article did not provide any data on the number of heavy trucks using the connector, presumably because Maine DOT has not measured this number or at least did not disclose this number to the BDN.

I have traveled on bridges over the connector many times since it opened a year ago, and it is always very empty, with few vehicles of any type and hardly any heavy trucks. I readily admit this is hardly a scientific observation, but it does suggest we need good data on heavy-truck traffic on the connector route to be able to give it any credit at all.

Third and most important, it is possible that heavy-truck traffic has decreased at least partly for reasons other than the connector route. As I used to tell my students, it is difficult to conclusively attribute any social change to just one cause. Could at least some of the August 2025 decrease in heavy-truck traffic have resulted from the wildfires that broke out in Atlantic Canada that same month, or from the increase in tariffs earlier in 2025, or from increased rail shipping since 2023, or from some other business factors or conditions?

According to the BDN article, Maine DOT will conduct a follow-up study later this summer. If this study again finds reduced truck traffic, couldn’t at least some of this reduction simply reflect the increased price of gasoline due to the Iran war rather than the connector’s impact?

All these issues indicate that the case for the connector route causing truck traffic to plummet is far from proven. Until that can happen, which I think is doubtful, questions will remain about whether the connector was worth its $107 million cost to taxpayers, the homes and land lost by dozens of residents when it was built, and the permanent damage to the Brewer, Eddington, and Holden landscapes.