Highway project will connect Maine to the world

Recently, the various plans to extend Interstate 395 have generated considerable comment and controversy. A decision on a particular route must be made and, therefore, as president of the East-West Highway Association, I would like to offer some thoughts.

There is no question of the need for a new connector. The improvements on Route 9 and an increase in international trade have caused traffic on Route 9 to grow. Roads such as Route 46 have had to become major arterials but remain rural roads suited for local traffic, not regional, traffic.

Safe and efficient transportation is essential to a healthy economy. Just last December, Joseph Boardman, the commissioner of Transportation for New York, spoke in Augusta before a large audience on the implications of good regional transportation connections. Speaking on the topic “We’re all in this together,” he explained that patterns of commerce have developed that completely circumvent the northern New England states and most of upstate New York. He added that the emerging service-based economy was placing a premium on high quality, multi-modal transportation links. Those regions that failed to provide such links would be bypassed by this new economy. In short, he explained that to participate in the new, transportation-sensitive economy, we must either be a destination or be en route to a destination. Right now, we are neither.

For more than three years, the Maine Department of Transportation has considered the I-395 extension as an integral part of a vastly improved central Maine transportation system. This policy was announced by Gov. Angus King before the Maine State Chamber of Commerce meeting in Bangor in October 1999. In his speech, Gov. Angus King recognized the importance of safe and efficient transportation to the health of the region’s economy and identified three projects, the Calais-St. Stephen bridge, the I-395 project, and the extension of a spur from Interstate 95 to the Skowhegan-Norridgewock area as related projects which, together, would provide the people of central Maine, east to west, with the beginnings of a safe and efficient east-west system.

Two days later, Transportation Commissioner John Melrose was quoted by the News as that MDOT policy had shifted in favor of the eventual construction of a four lane, controlled access highway from Calais to Coburn Gore. These three pieces were to be built so that they might eventually be incorporated into that highway.

With this understanding, the East-West Highway Association developed standards that could be applied to those three projects or to any project that might some day be incorporated into a regional road system. These criteria are equally applicable to such projects as the extension of Interstate 95, a project which the people of central and northern Maine also deserve.

These standards are as follows: that the project be designed to maximize safety; that it attain high standards of transportation efficiency; that it be designed so as to preserve transportation efficiency for the long term; that it be designed to guide growth where it is desired and to foreclose it where it would result in undesirable sprawl; and, that each segment be planned as part of a regional connector road system.

I recently spoke at a meeting on the I-395 project on behalf of the East-West Highway Association.

I did not, as was reported, state that the East-West Highway Association had endorsed a particular route. The association advances the regional perspective in support of the east-west highway and buildout projects that advance the highway. We do not endorse particular routes; instead we assess whether the routes and configurations proposed meet our stated criteria.

I did recommend that option 4-B or a similar analogue remain under consideration to ensure that its regional potential was fully assessed. I also emphasized the importance of people in our region and MDOT working together toward a route option for the I-395 connector that could generate substantial consensus.

Central and northern Maine are under great economic stress. The results of the latest census showed that our young are leaving in unprecedented numbers, our incomes are much lower than those of our neighbors in southern Maine, the economy we have known and which has sustained us and our communities remains under siege and, even as we work to preserve those jobs, we are not experiencing the arrival of the newer, more diverse economy that now characterizes the country’s more prosperous regions. Safe and efficient transportation is not a silver bullet; it is, however, essential to any healthy economy.

We are paying the price for our isolation and inaccessibility. Projects such as the I-395 extension, if properly planned and built, will one day open us to the world around us. In that regard, we were pleased that Gov. Baldacci endorsed the east-west highway project again at a Husson College business breakfast shortly after his election on Nov. 6, 2002.

We look forward to the efforts of MDOT, in conjunction with the affected communities and the entire region, in making steady progress toward the buildout of a vital east-west highway.

Andrew Hamilton is president of the East-West Highway Association.