Canamex plan draws praise, criticism

Friday, Feb. 16, 2001 | 11:10 a.m.

A proposed trade corridor that would run from Mexico to Canada, and through Las Vegas, would be an economic boon to U.S. states along the route, said transportation planners at a public meeting on the Canamex project Thursday evening.

But some of the citizens who came to look at the plan for the proposal said they don't believe the trade corridor would be good for the United States or Nevada.

"This is going to be a freeway for drugs and (illegal) immigration," said Rich Radke, who works in Las Vegas' communications industry. "I don't like it."

Chris Holliman, a FedEx employee, shares some of those concerns. He also fears that lower-wage truck drivers from Mexico will displace drivers on U.S. roads.

The corridor, and the NAFTA free trade agreement that spawned the proposed project, will mean overweight Mexican trucks with "dismal" maintenance records on U.S. roads and threats from accidents with uninsured haulers, argued A. J. Myles, a municipal government employee.

"I think that this globalization and free trade is destroying the country," he said.

But the executive director of the Canamex corridor project, Carol Sanger from the Arizona Department of Transportation, said what the five states along the route want to provide is a safe and efficient transportation system for every driver on the route.

NAFTA, she said, is a federal initiative backed by President Bush, a free trade pact certified by three countries, not the states.

The Canamex participants -- which include the state governments of Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Utah -- want to build a route that will benefit communities on and near the route with road improvements, development of tourism and shipping businesses, enhanced telecommunications services and most of all, jobs.

In the plan presented Thursday night, the corridor would provide more than 1 million jobs for the five states, including 240,000 in Nevada.

The plan would require $2 billion in road work, and the funding for that work hasn't been identified, said Jeffrey Fontaine, NDOT deputy director.

Fontaine grappled with a thorny issue that could affect the corridor: a proposed bypass a quarter-mile south of the Hoover Dam. Environmentalists and the city governments of Boulder City, Laughlin and Bullhead City, Ariz., support routing truck traffic through Laughlin instead of the new bridge.

While everyone agrees that there is too much traffic over the Hoover Dam, the Federal Highway Administration rejects the Laughlin alternative for a dam bypass as unworkable.

Fred Dexter, a Sierra Club activist, argued that the agencies involved should support the Laughlin alternative.

Fontaine said the issue of the bypass is an issue for the federal agency. He acknowledged that the Canamex corridor assumes that a federal highway will run over or near the Hoover Dam, but said that determination also is a product of federal law.

One visitor had nothing but positive things to say about the Canamex plan.

"It's one of the things that fits together real well with what we're doing locally," said Bruce Turner, assistant planning manager for the Southern Nevada Regional Transportation Commission.

He said the plan would help the RTC plan adequate services for trucks and other vehicles that pass through the region.

"We're supportive, and we're looking at how we can support it," Turner said.

Canamex plan architects will take public comments until March 15. The plan could be finalized by April 19, Sanger said.

For information, the plan is on the Internet at www.canamex.org.