The recent editorial “Bypassing The County” (BDN, May 1) about the Aroostook North-South Highway missed the mark. We hope to clear up some of the inaccuracies as we know the paper wouldn’t want to bypass the facts.
The project in question is a two-lane limited-access bypass around the cities of Presque Isle and Caribou. The editorial questioned the need for the project, citing communities with more traffic congestion, yet southern Maine communities with similar traffic counts have recently built or received approval for bypasses. Why shouldn’t these two northern communities be judged by the same standards as other regions in the state?
Beyond these flaws, the BDN suggested that more passing lanes, wider shoulders and truck lanes would somehow solve the problems that need to be addressed. What is certain is that the character, safety and future economic viability of the Caribou and Presque Isle downtowns would be irreparably harmed if the state were to follow the BDN’s proposals.
The federal agencies, the state and the cities of Caribou and Presque Isle are not talking about building four-lane highways. The two communities recently have forwarded to the Army Corps of Engineers their unanimous comments on where they would prefer to have a two-lane limited-access highway located. The Maine Department of Transportation is prepared to buy sufficient land to support additional lanes – if they ever are needed – but it has no plans in the near or long term to build additional lanes.
There are other issues that should be highlighted relative to this project.
Let’s talk about consensus. In Aroostook County, we saw unanimous City Council votes this year and in 2006 in support of the north-south initiative. In fact, many organizations representing a broad spectrum of the region’s residents have gone on record in support of this initiative, including the Aroostook Municipal Association, Leaders Encouraging Aroostook Development, the Northern Maine Development Commission, the Loring Development Authority, the Aroostook County commissioners, and the Aroostook Partnership for Progress. Similarly, when the Federal Highway Administration sought public comments on the North-South Highway, there was tremendous support from The County.
The safety context also must be considered. On an average day, Presque Isle’s Main Street – one of the two routes that planners want to bypass – carries more than 19,000 vehicles. This heavily traveled road carries as high or higher traffic volumes than many municipalities of similar size in Maine, including the towns of Gorham and Gray, communities that have either built or are in the process of building a bypass. A significant portion of the Presque Isle traffic is heavy truck traffic, and this project would remove 540 trucks a day from Main Street where pedestrians are faced with heavy trucks and high traffic volumes. That represents considerable safety gains for both cities and a shot in the arm for downtown revitalization.
There is also the issue of economic development. Removing through traffic from the two downtown districts would have the added economic benefit of reducing travel times significantly. The editorial questioned a one-way time savings of 10 to 15 minutes, apparently forgetting the old adage “Time is money.” For truckers, the aggregate savings would be $20 million per year. For the businesses in eastern Washington County who received similar benefits when Route 9 was improved, the time savings are significant. Those are similar, measurable benefits achieved with a price tag that is strikingly similar to the Aroostook project.
If anything, the engineers’ estimates on time savings probably are too low. Maine DOT estimated cargo tonnage for Eastport at 60,000 tons per year, but Eastport consistently exceeds 300,000 tons. Transportation planners are taught to err on the conservative side.
The BDN warns of the dangers of the bypass to business districts but misses the distinction of a limited-access bypass as proposed in Aroostook. Almost any town in Maine with a bypass or good alternative route steering heavy truck and through traffic away from downtown has experienced economic development and community vitality. A case in point is Augusta, which recently completed a limited-access bypass and now is realizing a resurgence in its commercial business district on Western Avenue. Heavy truck and through traffic are gone, and new development is not allowed to spring up along the bypass. The 10-year-old bypass in Topsham is another success story, as are Route 1 bypasses in Belfast and Damariscotta. None of these communities would want their bypasses closed, so that all that traffic could be sent back through their downtowns.
Finally, it is important to remember that the Aroostook North-South Highway project was funded through a series of actions taken by Congress. Those funds are not available for other purposes, and Maine is long overdue in putting these funds to work. We need this project to go forward so Aroostook – and the state of Maine – can begin to enjoy the many safety, economic and community-building benefits the Aroostook North-South Highway has to offer.
Nate Berry is president of Leaders Encouraging Aroostook Development. Maria Fuentes is executive director of the Maine Better Transportation Association.
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