Quote:
Originally Posted by PostModernPrometheus
Hey all -
I cant find the news article I saw it in, but there is a proposal floating around out there to build a 350km private toll trucking highway from southwestern Maine/ NB border to the quebec / maine border....cutting the tansit time to montreal in half from 10 to 5 hours....i cant recall the name of the company, but the idea seems timely...Maine is investing a LOT of money into highway upgrades, and this idea would place a rather large new highway within a little over an hour's drive from the Port of Saint John.....
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A ROAD LESS TRAVELLED
Trade Maine construction company pitches private, unrestricted thoroughfare linking New Brunswick and Quebec
Reid Southwick
Telegraph-Journal
Published Saturday November 10th, 2007
Appeared on page A1
A construction firm in Maine has proposed a $1-billion highway connecting New Brunswick and Quebec in a bid to strengthen the region's economies with increased trade and investment.
Cianbro Corporation crews could build a private highway through Maine within the next seven years, pending regulatory and environmental approval, said Peter Vigue, company president and chief executive.
The transportation corridor would impose no weight restrictions, allowing transport trucks to haul goods throughout the region on a route that would give businesses better access to markets. The highway would shave about 250 kilometres from a trip between the New Brunswick and Quebec borders and would be accompanied by new utility and telecommunications lines, forming a corridor that would be built along existing rights-of-ways to minimize the impact on the environment. It would stretch between St. Stephen and either Woburn or Lac-Megantic, Que.
"Canadians are not our competitors - they are our partners and we have to start behaving like that," Vigue told the Telegraph-Journal editorial board on Friday. "We have to collaborate in a way that will enhance their economic situation as well as our own, and that's where we're coming from."
The proposed corridor represents an effective solution to a critical problem hampering efforts to increase trade along the eastern seaboard, said Nancy Thorne, Canadian co-chair of the Access Atlantica Northeast Trade Corridor group.
Canada and the United States place restrictions on the gross weight of transport vehicles because of the damage done to roads and highways in the spring as frost leaves the ground. Restrictions vary between jurisdictions, which can boost costs of transporting goods and limit businesses' competitive edge.
"Weight restrictions place Atlantic Canada in an extreme disadvantage to all other parts of Canada," she said. "Here is an absolute, real solution to the problem with timelines in place when we have been hitting brick walls with politicians and just not getting anywhere for years and years."
Cianbro is conducting a feasibility study of the project, which is expected to be complete by April. The firm will then study the environmental impact and the financial feasibility of the transportation route. Following two years of construction, Cianbro expects the highway could be open by 2014.
But the project still has to pass several significant hurdles before it can go ahead.
Cianbro has not yet received public endorsement from key political leaders, including Maine Governor John Baldacci. And it will likely have to fall under the intense scrutiny of federal border agencies in both countries, as Cianbro may controversially propose new border crossings to bookend the corridor.
On the New Brunswick side, if the firm can't broker a deal that would make the existing St. Stephen border crossing "work efficiently to the satisfaction of the trucking industry, we would propose a new site dedicated to the free flow of truck traffic," said project manager Parker Hadlock.
That proposal would come with a bid to allow transport trucks to pass seamlessly between countries, likely aided by digital passes attached to the vehicles.
The request could prove to be a major sticking point for American legislators, who are chiefly concerned about cross-border security.
On the Quebec end of the proposed highway, Cianbro would make a similar bid for a new crossing if company, industry and government officials opt for the Lac-Megantic location. The firm would propose no changes to the Woburn crossing.
Regardless of the work ahead, the ambitious proposal is being hailed as a potentially significant new source of economic growth for New Brunswick that bodes well for the Atlantica concept. And Maine, much like the Canadian Maritimes, is seen as the "end of the road" for economic activity and siloed off from the rest of the country.
Vigue said his proposed transportation, utility and communications corridor would empower the region with new strength capable of supporting -- and boosting -- the local economies.
"This is not simply about our company, and it's not just about Maine. It's about all of us and the next generation," he said. "And making decisions today as we go forward as businesses and governments will impact the future not just today, but for generations to come."
Neil Jacobson, chief operating officer with Enterprise Saint John, said the project would play a critical role in sharpening the competitive edge of New Brunswick businesses.
"The ability of our entrepreneurs and our business people to get their product more efficiently to markets on the eastern seaboard in New England or even Quebec, Ontario and beyond is critical," he said.
"What this project does is really positions us very much in the middle of a much broader economic region that extends throughout Atlantic Canada, New England and across Canada."
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Northrup is impressing me less and less. It's a nice development, but it's your standard power centre (before these spotlights, that is). And if you can see them from the west side, they're too powerful and a waste. At least you don't see Halifax's from the middle of Dartmouth and vice-versa. 
New Highway proposal
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