CITYLINK: Connecting disaster

I remember when Portland, Maine, was a “livable” city. As recently as the year 2000, it was safe to walk the streets at night. Neighborhood people used the public library. The public schools were some of the best I’d ever seen.

Then, a coalition of starry-eyed social engineers and local business owners thought it would be great to link Portland with Boston by passenger rail. Much of the same Utopian rhetoric about the glories of public transit was heard in Portland, along with bullishly optimistic profit projections. The path to a bright and shiny future was by rail.

However, it was a pervasive urban blight that came by rail from Boston, and beyond. Problems of poverty, crime, drugs and street violence flooded into this formerly “livable” city. Public places like the library became homeless shelters. Beggars appeared on street corners. A formerly middle class city became yet one more failed city, defined by its problems more than by its possibilities.

Citylink advocates say their transport hub will start local, however it is the logic of plans like this that they expand. We need not import the problems of Spokane and Seattle. Reject Citylink!

RALPH K. GINORIO

Coeur d’Alene