ORONO, Maine — While business and government officials from Maine and Canada gathered Tuesday morning at the University of Maine to discuss how to spur economic growth in the Atlantic region, a small cadre of central Maine residents outside the conference decried one of the proposals aimed at reaching that goal — an east-west highway through Maine’s interior.
Tuesday was the second day of the Cross-Border Economic Integration in the Northeast Conference, which featured a presentation from Cianbro Chairman and CEO Peter Vigue about plans for a privately funded 220-mile Maine toll highway connecting New Brunswick to Quebec.
Vigue said Tuesday afternoon that the highway idea is “very attractive” to the provinces of eastern Canada and would bring jobs and increased potential for tourism to Maine communities. The project also would open up new lanes for exportation of Maine goods to the provinces and the Midwest, Vigue said.
“This is a project we’ve worked at now for many years, and in recent years the economy has started to improve and turn around, and we began to really understand the demand for this corridor and this highway,” he said.
But it’s a need that protesters displaying signs Tuesday outside Wells Conference Center, where the event was held, don’t see.
Peter Brenc of Dover-Foxcroft, David Bessler of Atkinson and Peter Eldredge of Guilford argued that Cianbro has yet to prove towns surrounding the route of the highway would see increased prosperity because of its existence.
Brenc argued that Interstate 95 has been routing traffic through Howland and Millinocket for decades and that the highway hasn’t helped those “ghost towns” through economic hardship.
Bessler said Vigue has been vague about how the highway will draw business to Maine and that the temporary construction jobs it will create will go away after a few years. He said he believes the project would do more to change the identity and “soul” of the area than to improve the economy.
The men displayed signs carrying messages such as: “Vigue’s dream is our nightmare,” “Don’t ruin our townships” and “Don’t break the heart of Maine.”
While the highway undoubtedly would serve as a shortcut for Canadian commerce, the protesters said, they would rather see Maine’s interior kept as is.
“We’re all in the path of it,” Brenc said, adding that he didn’t want central Maine communities to be divided in half by a “swath of road.”
The state will conduct an independent study to explore the feasibility of the new road. Vigue said he is confident the state will like what it finds.
“The state of Maine should evaluate for itself — not for me or for anyone else — but evaluate for itself that this is the right thing for the state of Maine and that it will benefit the state of Maine,” Vigue said.
Vigue said the number of residents in favor of the project far exceeds “the number of adversarial people that don’t want to see Maine grow.”
“The facts are that the economy is going in the wrong direction and that there are people who … want to live in these rural areas that are deserving of an opportunity to earn a strong income,” Vigue said. “We have zero intentions of going through a community with a highway or a corridor and destroying it.”
“If people who are opposed to this project have a better idea at improving the quality of life in these areas, have a better idea at re-employing people that are unemployed or underemployed, have a better idea on how to take people off of social programs and put them back to work, then I’m more than willing to listen,” Vigue said.
Yes, those darn social programs like, social security, there ruining this country,and state. We should model ourselves after massachusetts, that would solve all our problems in this state.
Last time I heard, Mass had Social Security and, unless you arn’t working, you might be paying in too. Actually the greatest share of the National debt is owed to Social Security. Maybe you would just as soon leave the senior citizens nad survivors out in the cold, but that would make you the kind of person I wouldn’t care to know!
I was being sarcastic..
I wasn’t
Vigue said Tuesday afternoon that the highway idea is “very attractive”
to the provinces of eastern Canada and would bring jobs and increased
potential for tourism to Maine communities.
Screw Northern New Brunswick and Northern Maine, but then the other Maine doesn’t care.
I hope the man holding the sign “Loosing your home” is not losing his home. But this is a dramatic example of one of my pet peeves: the difference between ‘loosing’ and ‘losing’ (loose and lose). It’s a mistake seen over and over in comments. I wonder why. Why, all of a sudden – I’d say in the past three years – this is a mistake seen everywhere.
But I truly hope he is not losing his home.
Kind of humorous that you would point out a misspelling Narthwoods. ;-)
Yeah, pretty whiny of me, I know. Had to get it off my chest!
if two of these protesters left the protest area the BDN would have to drop the “s” in protesters in the headline.
how can three people get so much attention is beyond me.
PS: nice pony tail. that absolutely rocks!!!
If the highway is privately funded who will own it? Who will the tolls go to?
That’s easy! LePage’s relatives in Canada will own it. The Trans-Canada highway. Allow them canadians to zip right across Maine without setting foot here.
I doubt that lePages relatives will own it! The Trans-Canada hwy only goes accross Canada it does not enter the US.
This highway will go from Canada to Canada. What would you call it?
Not the trans-Canada Hwy – do you know anything about the trans-Canada Hwy and why / where it was built – or are you just saying something by saying nothing thats important.
I stand corrected! Trans-Maine Canadian Highway. You happy now?
Thats a silly question to ask .
“Brenc argued that Interstate 95 has been routing traffic through Howland and Millinocket for decades and that the highway hasn’t helped those “ghost towns” through economic hardship”
Peter Brenc,
The “ghost towns” you speak of (specifically Millinocket) would not have existed after the mill closures without the existence of I-95. Most of Maine would gladly stand behind you, if in fact you were about to lose your home, but the only thing you have done here is prove your some kind of ill informed loon.
Millinocket & surrounding towns see thousands of tourists every year “because of I-95”
From tourists to hunters, backpackers, sledders, and more use I-95 every day,,,, not to mention the vast amount of logging trucks, small businesses and more that rely on it..!
The only plausible explanation is that your one of those Quimby types that believes that no one should live in the Northern Woods.
Members of the grass-roots group Native Forest Network, which has advocated a “no compromise” position on Plum Creek’s application, attempted several times to bring a cake reading “Congratulations Plum Creek” inside the meeting venue.
Each time they were instructed by police to leave the large cake outside. After the third attempt, Bangor police arrested a man — identified by group members as 59-year-old Peter Brenc of Dover-Foxcroft — and charged him with disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing.
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He also said ” The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms”. Now leave me alone!
Gosh barnhole1, if you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen. Then no one will bother you.
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Defending one’s home and community hardly makes one a deadbeat!!
Sorry, deadbeat was the wrong word. Layabouts looking for a cause is a better description.
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I happen to live along the proposed route. I would gladly give up my home for the greater good if asked. These “usual suspects” are so marginalized because they don’t represent a single cause. Rally a group of elderly people who are about to be thrown out of their nursing home or a business that will have to close its doors and it might become more believable. Hell, I would even settle for a displaced spotted owl at this point.
Glad to hear that you are willing to give up your home to make this happen – given that it’s on the proposed route, we’re probably going to take you up on that. Except that we’re not going to need the home itself, we’re just going to run a 4 lane divided highway through your land. Your trailer will be fine where it is – we don’t think the blasting will affect the slab or your well at all. We are happy to pay pay about $400/acre, which is the going rate for backwoods property. If you don’t like that price, you’re welcome to file a complaint, while we secure eminent domain authority. Thanks again.
Oh – and as a token of our thanks, we are prepared to offer you a 10% discount on the tolls that you’ll need to pay to get out of your driveway.
Great. I’ll take it and find a high end home on Essex Street in Bangor…..
Good luck selling your trailer after it has a four lane highway running through the back yard.
After the state/Pete Vigue gets done with you…………the only “high end home” that you will see is Peter Vigues!!!!!!!!!
$400 an acre? Wow! I, for one, will take all I can get! And in the Sebec Region!
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I think I have yet to see a home on the Studmill Rd. How many homes are you talking about and do they even have the final route surveyed?
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Better not destroy my beer drining route, aka stud mill road, named after me, stud…. They will build an overpass over it???
They don’t even know that yet? Duh!!
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No it makes them clueless out of touch left wing loons. If they do some homework this road most likely won’t bother them. This road already exists its a bunch of local roads that are in very bad shape that would be upgraded and widened to Interstate/Turnpike standards with 4 lanes total . 2 going east , 2 west with speed limits that are seen on Interstates/Turnpikes 55 to 75 mph, and handle the amount of traffic on that type of highway. This highway like all privately run Interstates could actually end up in better condition than the Government run I-95 and State Government run Maine Turnpike. Privately funded and run highways have worked in other states why can’t it work here.
Maybe because this isn’t “other states” I was told by an old Mainer that one of the biggest problems here was that people move here to get away from the fast hubbub of the cities and then they try to make Maine just like what they were running away from.
Baloney – you are not protecting anything except no job growth!
Is it me or does Maine attract professional protestors
Here is the answer to your question from Oct. 2008…
Members of the grass-roots group Native Forest Network, which has advocated a “no compromise” position on Plum Creek’s application, attempted several times to bring a cake reading “Congratulations Plum Creek” inside the meeting venue.Each time they were instructed by police to leave the large cake outside. After the third attempt, Bangor police arrested a man — identified by group members as 59-year-old Peter Brenc of Dover-Foxcroft — and charged him with disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing.
Probably “professional” isn’t the term.
There are too many nebulous claims and unanswered questions. The lack of information makes me suspicious.
“Vigue said the number of residents in favor of the project far exceeds “the number of adversarial people that don’t want to see Maine grow.””
Is Cianbro “growing”, the same thing as Maine “growing”? This project will certainly pad Cianbro’s pockets in a very big way but how exactly is it going to help the Maine people? How much is the toll going to be? How exactly will this toll road help tourism?
This same “highway” argument has been made over and over for extending I-95 to Fort Kent in order to make everything in between prosper, but if I-95 is all it takes to make an area prosper, kindly explain the giant void between Bangor and Houlton.
Now they can get cheap labor with not having to have more than 1/3 of the electricians licensed I bet they are going to show a big profit.
Bob it appears that Vigue and Lepage sleep together. Didn’t Lepage just vote that electricians can now have two people apprentice with them? It appears this is all for the benefit of Peter Vigues cash register and clearly NO benefit to the people of Maine!!! I’d vote for that highway if only UNION workers made it and the Maine folks drove on it for nothing.
Just get the CAT back!
It wouldn’t matter what was proposed to stimulate economic development in Maine, someone will protest, because a blade of grass in their littler corner is going to be bent.
Three guys that brought more signs than people are a protest? Bizarre.
Maybe the signs were protesting the people! Send these signs back to their homes!
Say we did away with every thing that people did not like what would Maine be like ??
Void of people.
No try bankrupt
I don’t care much for people, so, empty. Besides me.
So you are thinking about your self an the heck with everyone else. So you would care if people lost there jobs an went on welfare
Right – deadbeats….. Because Plum Creek, Casella Waste, Wall Street, W, and windmills have been such a blessing for the State of Maine, right? I hate to say it barnhole, but you might be the deadbeat.
No its Liberals, Environmentalists, Liberal Special Interest Groups, Welfare Cases who are destroying our state. These folks are part of that crowd that wants this state to continue to be dependent on Government for Handouts and Redistribution of Wealth. The same crowd who has been in control for decades. This highway isn’t going to hurt anyone it will create huge economic growth for the 2nd District’s economy which has been stuck in the 18th century. This highway is going to be built very soon. All LePage and DOT has to do is use Emergency Maine law and declare a need for this road to help grow our economy and shovels and construction equipment will start digging. Why should we listen to these 3 idiots one of which doesn’t know how to spell losing.
You’re an expert on everything aren’t you darkcat.
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Sorry your wrong!
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I’d be willing to bet Mitt Romney’s $10,000 that not one of these protesters is registered democrat!
Really? How many exits in Maine that amount to anything? Maybe some of those “Environmentalists” want to make sure that there is something left here worthwile for our grandchildren!
You’re right. I feel like such a looser now….
With the exception of of major events, ie. Civil rights violations by the government, I find protesting, regardless of the reason, obnoxious.
Ahhh, but might your statement be a sort of protest?
Minus the whining and picketing. Ok, minus the picketing.
lol! While you (may) have been whining, I was picketing my nose! (not with my mouse hand)
I find that picketing your nose is more productive than protesting.
Can’t argue that. When my nose needs picketing, there is no protesting!
I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it…..
A small cadre of central Maine residents…decried…etc. Let me guess, they are not representative of most of the people involved. They are the dangerous idiots who actually believe that we puny humans can actually effect the planet. And this is news?
3 protesters ??? LOL…Only in the BDN would this crap get this amount of coverage…BUILD IT…
Rediculous!!!!! Peter Vigue doesn’t need his company’s hand in another big project that is self serving. Makes me sick!!!!
This is truely the dumbest idea ever, building a new, four lane highway through the center of the state, for the benefit of Canndian businesses! We don’t have enough money to repair the roads that we currently have, oil prices are going through the roof and Mr. Vigue argues that everything will be financed by “private” money. The only people who this will help are Mr. Vigue and construction companies!
Trucking “interests” have been whining and getting their way on weight and speed limits. Let’s hope they don’t get their way on cutting the state in half with this boondoogle!
I’d also be willing to bet that many of the people who are for this project were vehemently opposed to the National Park proposal by Roxanne Quimby. Those people were against a project that would’ve saved land and the Maine way of life. Now they want to rape and pillage a huge swatch of land and it’s ok?
I do not think this is needed, we have an east west rail line, and the State of Maine can not afford this. The protesters may be a little strange to some, but they are correct on this one.
Rail Line? Rusted out and rotted ties. Canada wants this Maine land for their new extension of the Trans Canadian Highway. I feel bad for all the Mainers who will have their land, farms and homes confiscated.
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If Vigue and Paulie are so determined to see this highway built, fine. Let the user’s pay for it. That means that Cianbro and LePage’s TP crowd can ‘pony up’ the feasibility study money and the trucking comapnies can fund the construction cost’s if they need this highway so bad. This project has been so debated, studied and rejected so many times that it look’s like Clinton’s date book for Air Force 1.
What is so curiously missing is the Maine Revenue Service’s input on this whole mess. If this highway is supposed to generate so much revenue from toll’s and the like (including fuel excise tax’s) then where is there, and the MTA’s, input in all of this. If the main issue is money then where are the State’s ‘bean counter’s’ in this ? The same can be said for the Fed’s. Any new or improved border crossing’s need to go thru a process of proposal, study, public comment, review and final finding’s. Just look at the ruckus at the changes that were made at the Forest City crossing. No where, that I’ve seen, are the Fed’s CBP folk’s anywhere to be seen in this. Can we all say or spell s-n-e-a-k ? Paulie, you got caught with your ‘whats’s it’z’ in your zipper. Come November you’re gonna face the voter’s. I for one am looking forward to it.
Don’t build a highway that would put some people to work can’t have that in Maine wouldn’t be right.it’s ok to create jobs as long as its south of Bangor /sarcasm off
Three protesters and the BDN media has them on a full photo,no surprise there? Why don’t the idiots wait and hear the spiel before protesting? Only in rural Maine,lol.
Don’t be surprised when this road stops at I95 where all the Canadian trucks will flood the US markets with their government subsidized potatoes.
Only the planned gas pipeline will continue all the way across Maine.
I just want to share that at a presentation I did approach Peter Vigue and tried to dialogue openly with him about other options that will improve quality of life, employ people, that will take people off of social programs and put them to work. I think that we have similar concerns, but a very different philosphy on how to address those concerns. I offered 3 times for us to sit down and talk about his idea, because we have many other ideas that will do a much better job at providing empowering jobs, much greater in number than the ones produced by these super huge companies, especially transnationals that do resource extraction, increasing community vibrancy, and do not harm the environment. He didn’t take me up on the offer, and hasn’t been willing to listen to opponents of this project thus far.
So, we are going to try to bring these ideas to folks without the support of super huge businessmen, because it is not in their best interest to promote the well being of people. It’s in their interest to make money, as efficiently as possible. And that my friends, is why you don’t hear about those ideas. Because in this society, we are very dominated by money. But that is not the best way to live. If you investigate solidarity economics, and the new economic institute for examples, you will see what I’m talking about. Peter Vigue and most of the businessmen at that conference are telling you that we don’t have the resources here to do what is needed. They’re telling you that you need someone else to link you to this “global economy”, someone who will make most of the money and give Mainers a few hundred jobs. But there are hundreds of thousands of people here. What will the rest of us do? It starts by thinking of all the systems that we rely on. Food, clothing, shelter (building materials), education, healthcare, etc. Then, think about how Maine people could run industries, farms, etc. as collectives to produce those goods and services. This is happening extremely successfully in many areas, although very isolated because it doesn’t profit transnational companies. It doesn’t necessarily add to the “GDP” or wall street figures that they care so dearly about. However, it can employ us, empower us to meet our needs, encourage cooperation, etc. I understand why no one knows about this, and I really think that Peter Vigue means well, but his model and the model that has driven us to our current degree of vast income inequality, often poverty, and rampant disempowerment can only be broken by focusing on people first, and meeting as many of our needs close to home. It is different, and it won’t make any one person or corporation very rich, so it’s unpopular with the powers that be. I hope someone that Peter will listen to might talk to him about solidarity economics…I’m personally really curious what he’d think about it, especially seeing the places that it’s working so well. He wants to improve big business, which he thinks will lead to better communities, but the way he is going about it will further the disparity and the poverty in the long run, plus at the cost of our environment. We want to improve all responsible business, and that cannot be by running a super-corridor through the state, that will link us all up on a central grid of gas and electricity controlled by giant profiteers. Not to mention, that is a HUGE security risk for us all.Madison’s electricity is done cooperatively. I think it’s $.07 kwh vs. what most of us pay, $.12 kwh? Anyway, better. And locally controlled. Cianbro is worker-owned, and that is a really great start.I have a great deal of respect for everyone that wants life to be nicer for themselves and others. It’s possible, but I promise you that road and corridor is just more of the same and the kind of development it may bring is not the kind we want. More corporate folks wanting to squeeze the sweat right out of you, and our land. We need to do it by working together, and now. I’m hesitant to put contact info on here but please reply to this thread.