AUBURN – A weekend of rain was blamed for ongoing troubles this week on Route 136 between Auburn and Freeport.

After repairing a washed out section of the road on Friday, crews saw most of their work sliding right back into the Androscoggin River.

“The rains came on Saturday and Sunday, obviously. What happened is, the bank started to move again,” Department of Transportation spokesman Mark Latti said Tuesday.

The section of 136, near the Auburn-Durham line, was closed again late in the weekend. On Monday, it was reopened after a temporary lane went up, but traffic is limited to one lane.

“What we did was put up traffic lights at both ends of the damaged area,” Latti said. “That will allow one lane of traffic over that temporary lane.”

The present configuration is expected to slow traffic along the busy throughway, though it will be faster than detours set up last week when the roadway first crumbled.

Get used to it, Latti says. Though MDOT crews plan to return to the area to get the road back in shape, it will take time and the work will not begin right away.

“We need to wait until that bank stabilizes and dries out,” Latti said. “There really is no timeline for this.”

Approximately 4,000 vehicles travel the road each day, according to the MDOT. The temporary signal lights are approximately 500 feet north of the Durham town line in Auburn.