http://www.clf.org/blog/maine/shelving-the-wiscasset-bypass-is-smart/ For a thriving New England Tue, 17 Sep 2013 23:46:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 http://www.clf.org/blog/maine/shelving-the-wiscasset-bypass-is-smart/#comment-1205 Tony Redington Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:20:29 +0000 http://www.clf.org/?p=5232#comment-1205 As a former state planner and one who literally canvassed a substantial portion of Lincoln County roadways, dropping the Wiscasset bypass makes sense–from Labor Day to Memorial Day one faces no traffic problem. And, like New Hampshire and Vermont trafic growth peaked in the 90s and we may see this decade the first overall decline in car travel in northern New England since the bicycle was king in the 1890s. In a word the car age is over, one presaged when national petroleum production in 1987 was equalled for the first time by transportation consumption. The Maine leadership in reviving rail transportation already assures an alternative, cheaper, more comfortable access from Portland to Rockland in beyond . Maine’s (along with Calfornia’s) voters in 1991 doomed the car age by calling for multi-modal planning and investing in rail and other public transportation–the landmark Intermodal Surface Transportation Act of 1991 signed that December by President H.W. Bush marked the political shift which help assure the redirection of transportation with the Wiscasset a today, two decades later, a natural result.

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