Proposed east-west central Maine private highway (Brunswick, Wayne: college, to live in, centers)

[gcberry]

Plan to Build a Private Highway Bisecting Maine Draws Mixed Reviews

article in NY Times

[RMoore007]

Originally Posted by gcberry

Plan to Build a Private Highway Bisecting Maine Draws Mixed Reviews

article in NY Times

Here's my vision.



From the article:

This area has been left behind, and that’s the way we like it,” Joan Morrison, 72, said as the family sat around the kitchen table.

I know it's nice to live in the past but to me, if nothing ever changes or advances, then how can you move forward?

And:

Once the feasibility study is done, Mr. Vigue said he expected to take three years for the permitting and design of the project and another three to build it.

Now add another ten years to that and I'll take it seriously.

I suspect this has all been discussed here before but it's always nice to dream about a new highway to Heaven Or Hell, depending who's music you like better.

[Maine Writer]

//www.city-data.com/forum/maine...t-highway.html

[Coaster]

Yep^^^^BTDT^^^^

[slyfox2]

I think Canada should pay for it, since most of the reason for having it is to get people from coastal New Brunswick to Montreal.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by slyfox2

I think Canada should pay for it, since most of the reason for having it is to get people from coastal New Brunswick to Montreal.

Except that no one official in Canada has expressed a desire to see this highway built.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by slyfox2

I think Canada should pay for it, since most of the reason for having it is to get people from coastal New Brunswick to Montreal.

It's a toll road, so if Canadians use it, they will pay for it.

[tatans]

C'mon guys, U.S. pays for it, Canada uses it, U.S. keeps paying for it, even at $50.00 cdn per car you wil be losing money. Good for Canucks, not that great for Mainliners.

[LordSquidworth]

Maine needs it. It's bleeding young people because its stuck in the past.

[beltrams]

Originally Posted by LordSquidworth

Maine needs it. It's bleeding young people because its stuck in the past.

Yes, and with Peak Oil now a fact, and peak vehicle miles traveled a fact, and with Chindia's oil imports absolutely soaring at the expense of the US and Europe (that's why gas is now nearly $4 a gallon, soon to go much higher, even with some renewed production in North Dakota), and after the fact that electric cars and trucks will remain impractical for long-distance, interstate driving, after Maine builds this road, it can be stuck in the past yet again.

But fear not. Maine is going to stop bleeding young people. Much of the rest of the US is becoming unlivable thanks to searing heat, increasing crime, crumbling infrastructure, and the collapse of the college bubble (where young people find that, after spending $200K on a college education, they cannot land a decent office-cubicle job after all.) Then keep in mind that people all over the US can no longer feed themselves while Mainers still have decent farm land fairly close to major population centers and housing is cheap in Maine and there is no fresh water crisis like so much of the rest of the US suffers and I can see population trends starting to swing back towards the northern forest states such as Maine, Vermont, Minnesota, upstate New York, and so on.

An east/west road to nowhere in an age of $8 gasoline and diesel won't be useful or desirable.