Yes on Question 1

Do you favor a $36,985,000 bond issue for improvements to municipal and state roads, airports, state ferry vessels and terminals, transit facilities and equipment and rail and marine facilities that makes the State eligible for over $60,000,000 in matching federal, local and private funds?

This, in many ways, is a typical transportation bond proposal — a sizable yet affordable state investment leverages substantial matching funds, creating a pool of money to carry out needed transportation projects deftly distributed throughout the state.

There is, however, more to this package than the usual patching, filling and fixing of Maine’s shabby transportation infrastructure. There are two forward-looking components that make it especially worthy of voter support.

First, there is $15 million to develop a modern deep-water port at Mack Point in Searsport by rebuilding the two existing, aging piers owned by Bangor & Aroostook Railroad and Sprague Energy, with the companies repaying the state through port revenues. Combined with Eastport and Portland, this would create the middle leg of the state’s long-deferred three-port strategy and provide central Maine businesses with a gateway to the world marketplace. This is public-private partnership at its best and an investment that will pay a handsome return for decades to come.

But it is one of the smallest pieces of this bond proposal that is the most significant — $600,000 to study the feasibility of an east-west highway. Maine has ignored its trade potential with the Canadian Maritimes and Quebec for too long, it has wasted years in fruitless worry over the economic decline of its northern tier. Creating this trade route will be huge project and there are many huge questions to answered regarding its scope, precise route, economic and environmental impacts. This study will begin to provide the answers.

The package also includes accelerated improvements to many of Maine’s most neglected roads. Aroostook County should be particularly pleased that nearly $7 million is earmarked for Route 11 and that $600,000 will be used to study transportation improvements from the I-95 terminus at Houlton to the St. John Valley. In Washington County, almost $4 million will be spent to continue the upgrade of Route 9.

Besides Mack Point, the marine projects include $2.5 million for a ferry terminal at Vinalhaven, $800,000 to improve the Lincolnville terminal and $250,000 to design a replacement for the 30-year-old Governor Curtis ferry.

The $1 million slated for airports will leverage another $15.7 million in federal and local funds for major improvements in Portland, Bangor and Presque Isle, in addition to smaller projects at six regional airports. A $3.5 million investment in rail, combined with a $6 million federal math will improve lines in Rockland, Augusta and Calais, in addition to funding the Industrial Rail Access program statewide. On the alternative-transportation side, more than $3 million will go to mass-transit vehicles, park-and-ride lots and Rail to Trail development.

There are concerns that the June 9 primary will produce the lowest voter turnout in recent Maine history. This transportation bond’s combination of playing catch-up and building for the future should be reason enough for a trip to the polls.