BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER) - One of the nation's best-known largest environmental advocacy groups-- the Sierra Club-- has come out  against the proposed East-West Highway across the state.

The East-West highway would link New Brunswick and Quebec.... making it easier for people and goods to get from one Maine border with to the other.
The Maine chapter of the Sierra Club says it doesn't oppose the benefits of the highway... but argues the costs are too high to justify it.

"It just doesn't make sense to be building a highway for motor vehicles when rail transportation produces a quarter of the emissions that transport by motor vehicle on the highway would produce," argues Sierra Club's Jim Frick.

Some truckers say they can see a benefit to the project. "I got ot Northern Maine quite a bit. I'm not really fond of the roads they have up there. If they had another major interstate system at least running east-west or what have you, I think it would be a big help."

The Legislature recently approved spending $300-thousand dollars for a feasibility study on the highway, which would be operated privately, not by the state.
If the highway is built, it's estimated the price tag would be about two billion dollars.

NEWS CENTER