MADAWASKA – Municipal officials and supporters of a four-lane north-south highway for the last 100 miles of northern Maine will take their argument that the road end in Madawaska to the commissioner of the Maine Department of Transportation.

Nearly two months ago, a proposal for a four-lane highway from Caribou north to Madawaska was eliminated by a public advisory committee. So were nine other possible corridors, including an upgrade of Route 11 north from Patten to Fort Kent.

The corridor from Caribou to Madawaska would have been a new four-lane highway through the forests, just east of Long Lake and ending just east of Madawaska.

Madawaska officials, supported by a contingent from Fraser Papers Inc. and local businesspeople, attempted to have the public advisory committee reconsider the elimination of the corridor last month. It did not work.

On Monday, Madawaska Town Manager Arthur Faucher was trying to set up a meeting with DOT Commissioner John Melrose. Faucher would like the session in Madawaska. No date or time has been set.

Melrose already has said he supports the advisory committee’s decision, believing that the Caribou-to-Madawaska corridor would be too expensive, nearly impossible to get environmental permits for, and leave out Van Buren, which could become the only commercial port of entry into the St. John Valley from Canada.

“There simply has not been enough consideration given to the economics of the Edmundston, New Brunswick-Madawaska relationship,” Faucher said. “The words of the mayor of Edmundston and Fraser officials fell on deaf ears in Presque Isle.

“We want to meet with him [Melrose],” Faucher said. “He needs to understand the economic vitality of Edmundston.”

Faucher’s efforts were lauded by John Dionne of Grand Isle. Dionne, a businessman and believer in a highway north to the St. John Valley, has lobbied for it for more than 20 years. He rarely misses any meetings held on transportation issues involving northern Maine. He also has traveled thousands of miles over the years to put his view on the floor at dozens of meetings.

“I wrote to John Melrose [last week] because he’s in charge of all of this, and this is real serious,” Dionne, a 72-year-old retired businessman, said Sunday. “[Melrose] told us we needed a highway to Madawaska, and now they have changed everything.

“It seems that this was decided a long time ago without any say from the Valley,” Dionne said. “We want to discuss this, but it seems that we don’t count north of Presque Isle.”

Dionne, like many others in the Madawaska area, is not amenable to having upgraded highways instead of a new four-lane highway to Madawaska directly from Caribou.

If the more expensive plan for upgrades of roads is presented for funding to the federal government, it is likely to kill the whole north-south highway plan, Dionne thinks.Dionne also is infuriated that Houlton keeps insisting that it should be the beginning and the end of the northbound highway. Dionne believes a proposed road directly north from Smyrna Mills is the most beneficial for transportation.

Dionne said there is no other state that does not have a highway crossing the entire state. Maine is the only one, he said, where the highway stops 100 miles from the northernmost border of the state.