Common sense urged for road

To the editor:

The Maine Department of Transportation has already issued the permit that specifies the Route 9 changes the University of New England has designed.  MDOT has agreed to pay for 50 percent of the road changes.  Any other private entity would be required to pay 100 percent.

It is notable that the funding was approved in very short order ahead of projects across the state that have been proposed for years and not funded.  I believe this shows the result of political action by unknown parties as opposed to a totally MDOT directed process.

MDOT will hold public hearings on this in the fall, after UNE construction has been approved predicated on the roadway changes as currently designed.

In the exuberance over economic development the dirty little secrets of college student pedestrian behavior and the volume of low-speed, intra-campus traffic are being roundly ignored.  The quality of a decision rests on its assumptions; too bad there is no way to challenge those.  Common sense is to have no place in this process.  Expenses for this private institution must be minimized and this development must be facilitated.  Shut up and go home.

Here’s a suggestion to benefit UNE.  They should have a blanket insurance policy on their students so that when deaths and injuries occur on the reconfigured Route 9 they will have the money to actually fix the problem.  Of course by then it will be very expensive since the best design locations will have been usurped by their own construction.

Kyle H. Noble

Biddeford

Plan needed for more jobs

To the editor:

I’d like to respond to Roland Pelletier’s July 30 letter to the editor. The airport plan he is talking about was sent in hopes of getting “stimulus” money to get an airport/industrial park at little or not cost to Biddeford.

Most of the good-paying jobs have gone and have been replaced with big box stores and fast food restaurants that pay minimum wages. The city has been stagnant for years and needs this to attract new businesses. To keep our children here we need living wages, not existing wages. 

Roland is living in the past. Most of the 20-year-old-plus expansion has either passed on or have moved. Biddeford needs to look to the future and stop living in the past.

Phil Gadbois

Biddeford