Even though an east-west freeway would make driving times faster for me, I am firmly opposed to the idea. There is a clear need for the existing roads to be made smoother, but the huge disruption of a freeway is unacceptable.

It is easy to see why some Bangor merchants support the idea, because the freeway would bring an increase in traffic to the city, by siphoning off Canadian transcontinental traffic which now goes through Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, and Edmundston, New Brunswick. But we must not expropriate American landowners for such a projcct — families who in some caszes have owned their land for a century and more.

The time has passed for huge freeway proejcts; instead we must improve the resources we already have. Ongoing renewal provides better employment than a boom project such as a freeway, which would give temporary work, but would then leave our area just as impoverished as before, and uglier. Joseph D. Conwall Rangeley