For whom the road tolls

U.S. companies are finding the north more to their liking, according to a corporate site selector, because of the ready availablity of labor, the work ethic, company loyalty and the arrival of natural gas.

Maine, right?

They also come because of a new toll road and the low health care costs. Not Maine.

New Brunswick.

The Boyd Co. of Princeton, N.J., recently surveyed cities around North America looking for ideal places to locate telecommunications and data-processing operations. It looked at everything from heating and air-conditioning costs to property taxes to worker skills. It chose New Brunswick as the most desirable place because, when all the measurable costs and intangibles were accounted for, the cost of doing business was lowest there.

The differences in health care costs between the United States and Canada have been analyzed at length, with the advantages of single-payer, universal care described for anyone still listening. Apparently, very few people in Washington are.

The toll road, however, needs another look. “Toll road development favors economic development, new corporate investments and jobs,” according to John Boyd, president of the company that bears his name. “The infrastructure improvements of New Brunswick’s highways, like the toll road, are a very favorable circumstance as it relates to providing efficient and safe highway transport,” he told the Telegraph Journal of New Brunswick.

Can Maine profit by this information? Is there a highway-development proposal in this state that deserves more serious support than it has so far received? Would that highway run east and west? Yes, yes and yes.