Heavens! We’ve let two weeks go by without mentioning the road — in particular, the infamous Montana Department of Transportation’s North Fork Road Corridor Study (recent posts here, here and here). The Corridor Study has generated hundreds of public comments on all aspects of the issue — some carefully reasoned, many less so — but very little humor. The following letter by North Fork landowner Paul Edwards is an exception. He was, I am told, a professional writer in Hollywood. Personally, I think he is channeling Mark Twain, here. In any event, enjoy the read while I polish up my collection of 19th Century adjectives . . .
Members of the MDT:
What insanity is this, sirs? Is there any rational purpose whatever behind a study of the merits of paving an already perfectly adequate gravel road into a tiny, remote, isolated rural community adjacent to a Wild and Scenic River and one of America’s crown jewel National Parks, whose few year-round residents are overwhelmingly content with that road as it is?
Is there any basis in logic or practicality for spending money to determine whether the public should bear the appalling costs of creating a blacktop highway into de facto wilderness, to an end point where no one lives and beyond which no one can go, through prime habitat for many precious and endangered species that the American people want protected from just such incursions, and that are, due to its present character, largely so protected?
Can there be, in the fevered imaginations of a cadre of delusional boomers and bureaucrats, some intelligible justification for asking the public to finance an absurd highway to nowhere that virtually no one wants, when the all the rest of developed, inhabited, commercially active Flathead Country makes do with its network of badly kept, poorly maintained roads?
Surely, sirs, you by now apprehend the lunacy of this scheme. Surely you would be embarrassed, nay, shamed, to put your imprimatur on such a monument to utter folly.
Relying, as I do, on the persistent capacity of the human mind, when presented with irrefutable facts and compelling argument, to make the right decisions, even in the face of baldfaced imbecility, I am confident that you will dismiss this piece of egregious foolery out of hand.
You will, of course, recall the episode of the bizarre and redoubtable Sarah Palin and her “bridge to nowhere”, and its outcome. Enough said…
With tentative respect, pending your decision, I am,
Paul Edwards
Please include my letter in the official record.