My call for an interstate in northern Maine

“… despite notable successes in the past few years, Maine has suffered from an increasing tax burden, endemic loss of jobs and opportunities throughout many parts of the state ,and the persistent and growing perception that Maine policymakers are hostile to business and the economy of Maine … “

This is a quote from “Where We Stand 2003” a publication put out by the Maine State Chamber of Commerce six years ago. It’s one of the numerous old texts that I sift through on a daily basis in the Observer office. On a whim when my eyes needed a break from the hundreds of Shiretown Homecoming photos our staff took Friday and Saturday, I picked up the booklet on a walk through the back of the office and started to skim through it.
The MSCC stated in its introduction there are six areas that lawmakers needed to focus on to put Maine in a better place: reducing the cost of health care, improving the economic development prospects, reducing the state’s tax burden, reigning in government spending, reforming the worker’s compensation system and keeping education at the forefront of future growth.
All those points are easily talking points of any political session, even in the six years since this publication was printed. That being said, there was one thing that strikes me as something that is truly needed in the Penquis region and moreover for northern Maine: “the creation of a high-speed four lane divided east/west highway, as well as the four-lane extension of I-95 to Madawaska.”
An interstate highway makes a large difference in the marketplace, especially in rural Maine where that is the only source of transportation of goods given that rail has fallen to the wayside and air transportation is not logical.
Growing up next to I-43 in eastern Wisconsin, I noticed just how much of a difference an interstate roadway makes in an urban area. Dotted along the roadway in Sheboygan is a series of large factories, box stores, restaurants, industrial parks and housing subdivisions that give the town of 50,000 a large tax base to work off of. It brings in people, and most importantly brings in work. There too, rail is not what it once was and air transportation makes little sense.
If you go west from the interstate, jobs become more sparse because the factory work is located closer to the main artery. It quickly becomes a land where farming is king — well, at least the land is there for farming, and it’s prosperous for a few.
At any rate, an east/west interstate that connected Quebec to Nova Scotia through Maine would likely have to go through southern Piscataquis County to be effective and cost-efficient. It would make Piscataquis County a much more desirable location to start a business and for tourists— especially if this new east/west highway had a I-95 spur shoot off from the Pittsfield area and connect west to Greenville or Guilford.
As the MSCC said in 2003, “transportation infrastructure investments are critical to Maine’s economic future in several ways. First, they generate substantial numbers of jobs during construction. Even more importantly, once completed, major transportation arterials serve as a foundation for economic growth and development.”
Granted, the interstate is not the be-all, end-all for economic growth. If it is not supported correctly, jobs leave just as quickly as they come in. In Sheboygan, numerous factories have closed or downsized due to the economic recession. The kicker is, however, that more jobs are slowly trickling in again — in large part because of its access to the outside world.
I’d hate to see the authors of “Where We Stand 2023” have to recite that same passage that was written six years ago. It’s time the Penquis region get that same kind of access.