East/West Highway (Bangor, Burlington: purchasing, tax rates, restaurant)

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Coaster

All those words and you still haven't given any hint of long-term benefit to Mainers. Seriously, I'm begging, someone show me the how this helps Maine.

By connecting Montreal and Saint-John it will benefit potato farmers up in the County, because it goes right through the county. Right?

[maineguy8888]

Originally Posted by beltrams

New Hampshire and Vermont. (I-89 has a north-south designation, though I grant you, it has a bit of a east/west flavor, but not much.)

Oregon technically has one in I-84, but in my experience, that highway runs so far to the north of the state as to be useless to most Oregonians. People in the interior of Oregon (Bend, etc.) use state roads, grinding over the Cascade passes. Yeah, it's a pain going to and from Bend, Medford, and so on. (I have family in Bend.)

Nebraska doesn't appear to have a north-south highway and for that matter, the north-south highway that runs through the Dakotas is so far east as to be useless to most excepting those living in the cities of Sioux Falls - Watertown - Fargo - Grand Forks. Ditto Nevada.

Northern California has only one east-west highway, I-80, but that leaves areas of northern California without a east west highway that are just about big enough to drop the entire state of Maine in, so that's kind of the same thing as no highway. Central California is similarly, poorly served by east-west routes. Ever try driving east out of Fresno? One has to go way north or south to do it. Again, the nearly roadless/(highway-less) areas are as big as Maine.


For low population density areas, I think state roads suffice. Not everything need be an interstate.

For that matter, I think even I-95 north of Bangor is fairly redundant with Route 2. As for extending 95 to Fort Kent? Sure, go ahead, but the low traffic demand would hardly seem worth it. I live about a mile off of Route 1 north of Houlton and to me it seems Route 1 is already plenty adequate for the task. Maybe some bypasses could instead be built around Mars Hill, Presque Isle, Caribou and so on. That would seem to be far more cost effective than another 2 ribbons of pavement all the way to The Valley.

I agree about I-95. There's not much sense in it being built further north. They are almost finished the bypass around Caribou ("the Caribou Connector") and as far as I know they are still planning on building one in Presque Isle. Those will take about 15 minutes off the trip north.
I just don't see much use for the east-west highway, if built. It would only serve a limited number of people.

[maineguy8888]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

I can see the economic benefit from being able to haul resources from Quebec to New Brunswick.

Maine toll highway bill passes, sent to governor | wcsh6.com

The people of Montreal may receive benefit from a more direct route to haul those 'resources' to the people of Saint John. By doing so all Mainers living in both Montreal and in Saint John would be employed. Since these are both Maine cities and these Mainers they would all be paying Maine taxes, then Maine would benefit, and, .... Well maybe at least those truckers will pull off and eat a meal in Bangor [Maine] so a restaurant in Maine would benefit.

That makes it well worth the projected $2Billion price tag.

The problem is that the Trans Canada from New Brunswick to Montreal is really quite good, except for one short stretch just west of Edmundston. And even that is being upgraded. So most Canadians will take that, unless they are going directly from the St. John area to Montreal. And even many of those folks will take the Trans Canada.

[ribbets]

If it follows the course that Plum Creek did in Moosehead,it ought to take about 40 more years to happen

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Coaster is unable to find facts:
"Again, lots of vague feel-good words without a single piece of fact or a single sentence about how this will directly benefit Mainers."

Fact: Roads are good. Fact: Our forefathers abandoned cow paths and wagon tracks to build roads. Fact: Then they paved those roads. Fact: They did all that work because roads are good. Fact: Roads are the lifeblood of our economy. Fact: All Mainers benefit from roads. Fact: Big roads are better than small roads for the movement of most of the goods we need. Fact: If this were not true we would not have an interstate highway system.

Of course, Earth First and its fellow travelers are against all roads. Ecoterrorists and Muslim terrorists have the same goals. They want us to go back to a 7th century style of feudal slavery. The differences between those allies and liberty loving Americans could not be more stark.

Harsh words? Not really. Just read what children in Madras schools are taught as facts and what the environmental industry wants for us. They want the same results and are not really that different in methodology.

Global Sustainability requires: "the deliberate quest of poverty . . . reduced resource consumption . . . and set levels of mortality control."
Professor Maurice King

"Protecting the Environment' is a ruse. The goal is the political and economic subjugation of most men by the few, under the guise of preserving nature."
J. H. Robbins

"If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

"Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs."
John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

Free enterprise and private investment are the lifeblood of our economy. For our economy to grow we need the infrastructure to enable it to grow. Private enterprise is far more efficient than government. A new private east/west road in Maine will employ Maine people, support Maine families and lower the tax burdens of Maine people.

Just think about the tax revenue to Maine from the property tax on a $2 billion property. In the Unorganized Territories the mil rate is 11 mils. That's $11 per thousand on property. Much of the new road would be in the UTs. Let's say it's 75%. That would bring in $16,500,000 in the unorganized Territories. Town tax rates are about double UT tax rates. In the towns where 25% of the road would be they would take in $11,000,000.

[mainegrl2011]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

I agree with you there, M. Establishing an East-West highway and the subsequent development it creates is not going to destroy Maine's vast forestlands or habitat. In fact, IMHO, it will be a small sacrifice to insure just the amount of commerce to keep youthful population and dollars here to fund
more conservation.

I realize this proposed road will take a different route than I-95; however, has the construction of I-95 led to enough jobs to keep a considerable number of the "youthful population" from leaving the state to find employment? I don't have any stats regarding how many youths left the state before the construction of I-95 compared to after its construction....can anyone help with the facts on this? I have read numerous posts about people leaving at age 25 and returning at age 55 as well as the large number of retirees/seniors living in Maine....aging population, etc.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

If the road were a straight line it would be 147 miles long. With necessary curves it will likely be 175 miles or more. It will be much easier ground to build a road on than I-89 was across NH. It will take a large workforce more than two years until it's complete. We are the people who built a trans-continental railroad with horses, oxen and wood fired steam engines. We can do this. We have bridges to build, earth to move, fish ladders to place, siltation basins to position, restaurants to build, septic systems to install and signs to make. These all take equipment to maintain and people to make it all happen.

Maine is open for business. There will be naysayers. We'll listen to them patiently.

[beltrams]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Just think about the tax revenue to Maine from the property tax on a $2 billion property. In the Unorganized Territories the mil rate is 11 mils. That's $11 per thousand on property. Much of the new road would be in the UTs. Let's say it's 75%. That would bring in $16,500,000 in the unorganized Territories. Town tax rates are about double UT tax rates. In the towns where 25% of the road would be they would take in $11,000,000.

That would be over $27 million in taxes a year, or over $75,000 per day.

Let's assume for a moment that tolls are comparable to the Turnpike and that the average vehicle isn't a class 1 car, or a class 6 truck, but somewhere in between at class 4, a 4 axle truck. Now the Turnpike gets $17.55 from York to Augusta for such a vehicle, or about $0.161 per mile (109 miles long.) Scaling that to this new road's 175 or so miles, that makes a one way toll about $28.18, again, assuming the average vehicle is a Turnpike class 4 (I'm weighing this towards trucks, as that seems what the proponents keep talking about.)

Now if this road has to generate $75,000 per day, just for taxes, that means there have to be 2,661 full-length equivalent trips across this thing...again, mainly trucks, and this is before paying for any construction bond debt service, or upkeep, things I would expect to be the mainstay of the new road's budget. I would think that taxes couldn't eat up more than a fifth or so of the road's budget, suggesting that the road would need traffic counts in the order of 13,000 class 4 equivalents a day. That's a lot of cars and mainly trucks for a relative road to nowhere.

I still compare this road to I-95 north of Orono, and I doubt that road carries more than a few thousand vehicles end to end per day, so I just can't see how this new road would ever be able to pay such a high amount of property tax revenue back.

I do suppose shorter segments of the road in and around Bangor and Downeast would be patronized more heavily, but then those tolls will be lower.

I suppose I should go read some of the studies, but still, $27 million a year in property taxes just doesn't seem possible.

I suppose toll rates could be higher than the Turnpike, but then I think traffic would simply fall off further.

Forget the concerns of the bird and bunny people. This road will be a fiscal D O G and, privately built or not, will end up failing to pay for itself just as the likes of I-91, parts of I-89, and the northern end of I-95 have failed to pay for themselves, relative to the amount of fuel tax revenue travel on them has generated over the years.

Let's not become too glossy-eyed over this road. Most of the goods shipped over it will be the standard Maine or trans-Canada stuff, which is to say bulky and low value and that's Maine's problem all along - too many toothpick and newsprint makers and not enough iPods and this road ain't a' gonna change that.

The thing is, the road may cost $2 billion to build, but there is no way it's going to support a valuation for the purposes of taxation anywhere near that.

[tatans]

Originally Posted by maineguy8888

The problem is that the Trans Canada from New Brunswick to Montreal is really quite good, except for one short stretch just west of Edmundston. And even that is being upgraded. So most Canadians will take that, unless they are going directly from the St. John area to Montreal. And even many of those folks will take the Trans Canada.

People in all the Maritmes would love a road from southern New Brunswick over to Sherbrooke and on to Montreal without having to drive hundreds of miles(km) north then hundreds of miles(km) south to reach Montreal, is there any way Americans can convince Canada to help pay for the completion of the highway, of course it seems there would be no benefit to Mainers at all, by the way, looking at google maps I never realized just how far Maine extends into Canada. 54-40 or fight, that's why it's on the 49 parallel.
lol.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

When people ask what it's like in Maine I tell them it's like asking what Burlington, VT and Point Judith, RI are like. Maine is bigger than the other five New England states combined.