Question 4: Do you favor a $51,500,000 bond issue for improvements to highways and bridges, local roads, airports and port facilities, as well as for funds for rail access, transit buses and the LifeFlight Foundation, which will make the state eligible for at least $105,600,000 in federal and other matching funds?
Saying yes to Question 4 will help not just improve infrastructure linking Maine businesses but better connect Maine to the global marketplace.
The majority of the funds — $41 million — would go toward repairing roads and bridges deemed vital to business interests and public safety and would make the state eligible for $72 million in matching federal funds.
The demand for repair is great. Maine has more than 4,000 miles of existing highways in need of reconstruction, according to “ Connecting Maine,” the state’s long-term transportation plan. About 40 percent of the bridges maintained by the Maine Department of Transportation are more than 50 years old, meaning they are nearing the end of their useful lives. The Maine Economic Growth Council’s annual report this year assigned a red flag to transportation infrastructure.
Approval of Question 4 also would provide $3 million for dredging the commercial channel at Searsport, off Mack Point, to allow ships to carry greater capacity to the docks and reduce the number of scheduling delays caused by ships having to wait until high tide to enter the port.
Another $2 million, matched by private funding, would go toward installing handling equipment at the port to improve its ability to load and unload bulk products. For instance, Cate Street Capital’s Millinocket mill would be better able to send wood pellets to a growing green-energy market in Europe. Maine is particularly well poised to expand its forestry-related exports, as its spruce and fir harvests are expected to increase 23 percent over the next 20 years, according to engineering and forestry consultants at James W. Sewall Co.
Approval of Question 4 also would provide $1.5 million for warehouse facilities at the port of Eastport; $300,000 for weather observation stations and helipads for the LifeFlight Foundation; $1.5 million for industrial rail work; $1.2 million for aviation facilities; and $1 million for transit buses.
A basic part of sustaining commerce involves repairing Maine’s roads and bridges and making it cheaper and easier for importers and exporters to move their goods. The bond, which benefits industries and people across the state, should be approved Nov. 6.
Once again the Bangor paper has not been able to find a single bond they don’t support. More bonds equal higher taxes. Higher taxes mean more families loosing their tenuous hold on the “American Dream.”
You either pay now or pay more later on
How much do we owe for the bonds we have now?
The gas tax should be raised and truckers should pay their fair share for the massive amounts of damage they inflict on state roadways.
I bet the truckers would agree with you, if they only had to pay their fair share, then they would be able to keep more of the money they make. Instead they pay more than their fair share and Maine truckers are going out of business.
No, They may pay a lot, but they don’t pay enough. One 100,000 pound logging truck using a non-Federal highway causes more damage in one trip, than a passenger causes in a million miles of use.
Many roads (built by the State) in Maine have no “foundation. They just paved the cow path and kept doing it year after year. Then the State government raised the weight limit from 80 to 100 thousand pounds without raising the cost for use.
Yeah, I know the argument. We pay for everything moved here by truck. Then let “uys” pay. The people who do not buy stuff then won’t have to pay.
That is called “reality.”
Here is some more reality for you, many of those roads were originally built by those logging companies you are whining about. Those roads wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for the loggers. You are right in some respects though, they do damage. Of course the mills they service were built along rivers, not along roadways because the roadways weren’t built yet. So shouldn’t the buyers of the wood be responsible for the damage done to the roads? If they moved their billion dollar plants closer to the Interstate system then there would be no truck on the side roads. So charge the mills for the damage. Your answer would put thousands out of work, but who cares, we can just get trucks out of Canada to do it, right?
So your argument is I should subsidize your job? Who is “whining?” These are State roads we are talking about. Maybe the British built them before we were a Nation, but that really doesn’t matter now does it?
here’s another reality for you:
Our government is charging that Canada subsidizes (illegally) it’s Forest Products industry. Is my paying for the roads these trucks use in the US a subsidy?? If not, why not?
Your argument was about trucks, Canadian trucks pay fuel tax to the State of Maine for all miles driven in Maine just like U.S. trucks do. So Canadians are paying for the roads they use. If you want anything, literally anything from food, clothes, furnishings, building materials, and/or pretty much anything you can imagine, it takes a truck. You want it, you pay for it. The trucks pay more than their share to bring you the things you need to live. Even the 1% can’t live without trucks.
And many weren’t.
The truck does cause far more damage. You’re correct on that point.
Except for Forest Service and National Park roads, there are no, repeat, no, Federal roads in Maine. The Interstate System, the National Highway System, and the other roads that receive money from the Federal Highway Trust Fund, are State highways, without exception. The term “Federal Highway”, is almost always used incorrectly by the media.
Roads that are “just paved cow paths” have never been built, by definition.
Tux, you need to buy a private island somewhere. Make sure that when you travel to the mainland, you don’t use any public boat landings. Don’t walk along a public road, because after all, you are a non-paying pedestrian. Don’t eat any food, because it is probably subsidized somehow. Make sure you only urinate in the woods, because water supplied by a system that was improved by bond financing, might be used to flush your pee down the drain.
An educated population obviously is of no benefit to you, so you shouldn’t pay. You’ll probably never need the fire department, so you shouldn’t pay.
We could set up an accounting system that could calculate and then bill, each individual citizen, what he/she owes as an appropriate share of taxes, based on what that person receives in services. Anyone with any sense can see that such a system would be far more costly than what we are doing now.
Ok but you will still pay no matter what happens . just stop an think you will pay either way .
The truths asserted in this article are just wrong, wrong wrong. Wake up people and vote NO!
What in the article was “wrong, wrong, wrong”?
The bond issue presented through referendum question 4 will, in part, support DCP Conoco Phillips’ 23 million gallon LPG storage tank that is proposed to be built at Mack Point in Searsport; the channel needs to be dredged to accommodate the huge LPG tanker ships that will deliver the propane. The citizens of Maine will pay costs associated with building and operating the storage tank through lower residential property values, the cost of public safety infrastructure, and lost tourism income that will result from aesthetic impact of the tank and increased truck traffic. DCP is a large and profitable company that neither needs nor deserves any further public support. I will vote NO on Question 4.
Very small part if any. That channel is overdue for dredging anyway.
So if its build out of state an they half to go the same thing the cost will not be past along ?