The Forecaster or any other news source is hardly to blame for the enhanced language, for what seems to have been a potentially useful collection of commuter-related data in the Corridor Study has become an emotional lightning rod throughout a large part of the state, including areas not directly affected.

At the meeting in Portland held by Maine’s DOT in late January, Portland residents expressed outrage at the idea of the widening.  One Portland resident is reported to have said, “I was frankly flabbergasted” at the idea of the widening, given the continued continental mind-shift regarding global climate change.  And of course, the protestors are right; while most anti-public transportation stances tout the economic infeasability of such ventures, there’s no question that GHG emissions are reduced by alternative transportation options like commuter rails and buses.  Mainers are unsurprisingly livid or flat-out puzzled at the mere mention of enabling increased single-occupancy automobile capacity on a major highway. 

In feeble defense of Maine’s DOT, however, the widening of I-295 isn’t even on the table yet, this according to a DOT official.  The study began in 2000 as a means of collecting data and then guaging the necessity of adding pavement along the corridor, which leaves open the possibility that the study might conclude widening the highway is in no way necessary.  Secondly, 2000 was a long time ago.  Not even Al Gore was seriously discussing the topic of his book “An Inconvenient Truth” just then.  Somehow, campaign finance reform and the infamous Social Security “lock-box” became the defining issues of his last presidential bid.  Well . . . that and the graphic kiss he bestowed on Tipper and the rest of the nation.

It’s entirely conceivable that Maine’s DOT would consider the possibility of widening a major highway as an option in the climate of eight years ago, and since that time the state has embarked on other significant roadway endeavors.  As the study comes to a close within the next few months, depending on the findings, Mainers will have an opportunity not only to evaluate the solutions proposed by the state but also the language used to describe them.

The study aims to provide hard numbers regarding the estimated 85,000 vehicles moving between Scarborough and Brunswick daily, whereas the media and other information outlets will provide explosive language like “devastation” and “endanger.”

Of course, this is really just the difference between fact and analysis, but of particular note is which positions on the I-295 issue will use which kinds of language.

For example, opponents of light-rails in other small U.S. cities often characterize them as “ineffective” in addressing problems of congestion, not to mention the economic side-effects, but that word “ineffective” is a  stagnant, impersonal one that doesn’t so much describe anything as label it.  Contrastly, opponents of the hypothetical widening of I-295 are already using action words like “devastate” and “endanger.”  This kind of language is specific to activism in general.  Opponents of the widening are trying to galvanize citizens into dissenting action through action words, while the other position seems to align itself with the status quo, a position defined by inertia:  “Most of us already own cars, so let’s improve conditions for cars” rather than invest in untested public transportation, a more conservative line of reasoning that illustrates a reluctance to move away from the most popular mode of transportation in America. 

One position is not necessarily more correct than the other, but it’s clear which is more attractive.  The opposition is highly “reactive” in nature, riding emotion over fact, and thus more likely to use reactive language, while the DOT purports to do nothing of the sort.  Maine’s DOT is taking a bottom-line approach to transportation across the state that is likely to leave out the colorful language.

 In a debate that is itself about motion, it’s easy to get carried away with words.  But Mainers have to ask themselves, “In which direction?”