We find John F. Dionne’s “Disturbing highway news from Houlton” to be disturbing (BDN op-ed, March 1). His cliched and sweeping generalities reflect neither sound logic nor the majority opinion of those living north of Houlton. Dionne’s name-calling and mud-slinging fail to persuade us the [north-south] highway is necessary or desirable.
According to Dionne this highway will magically transform northern Aroostook County into a booming industrial region, a mecca for tourists, and will simultaneously restore the agricultural and logging empires to their former glory. If building four-lane highways is all it takes to accomplish that for depressed areas with declining populations, Houlton, the present terminus of I-95, should be bursting with prosperity as the crossroads for Maritime trade and the destination of southern transplants racing north to relocate in the County.
We believe the north-south highway matter should only be decided by complete, accurate and related studies of its social, cultural and economic impacts. These studies must be made public, and be realistically accessible to the people. In turn, the public must assume responsibility to find out for itself what kinds of bureaucratic brokering are taking place as short-term or special interests lobby the decision-makers to upgrade old or build new highways into northern Aroostook.
We would all do well to remember that roads run in both directions. They carry people out of the County as well as into it.
Wayne Sweetser
Pamela Snow
Presque Isle
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