Whatever the shortcomings of the state’s recently completed study of an east-west highway, Gov. Angus King has offered two ways that supporters of connecting this half of Maine to the rest of the continent can improve the odds of getting a much-needed route built. They are an opportunity to put aside differences and work toward a common goal.

A forum at the University of Maine last week examined the study by the State Planning Office and the Department of Transportation. Among other thing, forum participants contrasted the progress made in New Brunswick during the last 30 years through investment in infrastructure with the slow erosion of life in Maine.

Superior roadways, not surprisingly, are a major reason for any economic improvements in any region, and New Brunswick’s investment and improvements have been more remarkable than most. Apparently, the failure of Maine’s Legislature to spell out exactly what should be measured in studying the effects of an east-west highway left those conducting the study with the conclusion that, for instance, increased safety and new businesses produced by better infrastructure were not to be looked at. That led one person at the forum to conclude, accurately, that, “The questions the study asked seem to have precluded any vision, so it is hardly surprising that the conclusions the study drew precluded much vision as well.”

Gov. King’s vision, however, may be better than the study’s. First, his proposal would have the state buy enough right of way to build, as needed, a four-lane, limited access highway. More importantly, the governor said that any improvements to an east-west route “will be governed by performance standards we shall meet that address desired travel speed, level of congestion and safety.” These standards are welcome and needed, and the public process that the standards will undergo may clear up some of the deficiencies in the state study. But to this list of standards, the governor should add economic development.

Economic development, of course, is implied throughout the entire east-west highway debate, but by letting projected economic outcomes drive the shape of the highway — in addition to the other standards — many of the conflicts between the King administration and regional highway supporters could be removed. For instance, a standard that looked at job creation would provide a target for the creation of new businesses. And by discounting the federal share of the highway cost, as the study failed to do, the debate would have a clearer goal and a far lower cost per job.

Another way to look at performance is through avoided costs. Stafford Business Advisors of Portland recently looked at how much money a paper company sending its product to the Midwest would save if its truck traveled from this region to Chicago via an east-west highway instead of heading south, then west along the Massachusetts Turnpike. The resulting savings for a 20-ton delivery is $220, or $11 per ton. Stafford concluded in a draft report: “In an industry where `spot’ paper orders can be determined by cents, rather than dollars, per ton, this savings is a dramatic improvement in Maine’s competitiveness.”

While the paper-delivery savings are easily measured, more subtle but no less important are avoided costs for products coming into Maine — making them less expensive for businesses and consumers here — and savings a new limited-access highway would provide by taking some of the load off more congested places and concentrating populations to reduce the cost of sprawl. A prime benefit of these savings is that they are effective not only during the three decades the state study examined but for all time.

Increasing the competition among distribution centers through a new highway is still another component to an economic-development standard. The highway not only makes it less expensive to ship goods here; it also opens a market to the west that provides competition. There is every reason to believe that competition among suppliers is a benefit to the bottom line of Maine industry. The standard here might be that the highway connects to new markets that would promote supplier competition for specific Maine industries.

The debate on the east-west highway so far has spent too much time on whether the highway was “needed” rather than on what it could do for Maine. Commenting on Southern Maine’s growth in the 1980s, economist Charles Colgan, who helped write the state report, noted a decade ago that, “Equally dramatic changes are in store for Maine in the northern future opened by an expanding relationship with Canada.” An east-west highway paves the way to that future.