Transportation options

I want the state to look at transportation options other than tar. Let’s start with trains. No nationwide rail system from Presque Isle to Los Angeles. Just from Ellsworth to Orono.

The NEWS printed an article on air pollution over Acadia. Don’t lie and blame it all on our seasonal flow of tourists. There is a tremendous volume of people who work, shop or go to school in Bangor or Orono. Add traffic to Eastern Maine Medical and freight heading from Bangor to here and a lot of fuel is going up in smoke.

The rail line runs from the empty Herrick’s lot in Ellsworth Falls, a good location for a station, up past the location for the new Ellsworth Recycling Center. Good foresight of the Recycling Committee. The line heads to Bangor and zips right behind the hospital. All the hospital needs is a platform and open set of doors to the emergency room.

Further, the line breaks into a lot across from Cascade Park. The empty lot is only down the hill and a quick ride from the Bangor Mall. Eight more miles and you are within walking distance of the University of Maine. Awaiting you in Orono is an education, college hockey, football and the Maine Center for the Arts.

For those of us who drive between Bangor or Orono and Ellsworth during the winter, I would love to sit back and let someone else drive. No more hands clenched on the wheel as I negotiate icy roads or peer through the fog. Instead, a leisurely read of the paper or cup of coffee. If some of the freight moved by rail we wouldn’t have to spend a fortune fixing the roads.

As a society we are going to have to spend money on transportation. But the state is either oblivious to other options than spreading tar or is corrupt and in the control of the highway construction and automobile industries. Either way, the time has come to force the state to look at other transportation options and November’s referendum appears the only way to do it. Michael Hall Orono