I’m writing to urge to eliminate the funding for the study of Interstate 3 as proposed by H.R. 3, TEA-LU. The suggested routing through northeast Georgia is incomprehensible. Mountains, mountain communities and expressways are not a good mix – environmentally, economically and esthetically.

Please take a minute to review the justifications for I-3 in the original bill. They’re a joke.
The bill invokes the original, cold war purpose of the interstate highway system to justify “linking defensive installations across the South, including Fort Gordon, Eisenhower Army Regional Medical Center, the Augusta Veterans Administration Hospitals, Fort Stewart, Hunter Army Airfield, and the Port of Savannah which is in the strategic defense interest of the Nation.” These are hardly defense installations spread out across the south. They’re all either in Savannah or Augusta GA, which are only 90 miles apart. And how would an expressway linking these installations enhance our strategic defense? Would it somehow make military convoys less vulnerable to enemy attack? What enemy? How high a priority is the defense of these installations compared with others in more highly populated areas? Maybe I’m being naïve. Maybe there is a military justification that I just can’t see. But these installations are all in east Georgia. If you have to waste our limited tax dollars on new interstate projects, let I-3 run from Savannah to Augusta and go on to hook up with I-26. The terrain and communities along such a route are much more suited for an expressway than the mountains of northeast Georgia, western North Carolina and east Tennessee.

The bill also claims that “East Georgia, Western North Carolina, and the Great Smoky Mountains region of Tennessee are underserved by north-south interstate highways, and would benefit economically and through increased public safety by establishment of an interstate highway following a route through…Young Harris." You want to put an Interstate Highway through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park??? I-3 would ruin the very essence of what makes the mountains unique. The last thing we need is the kind of economic and development patterns that follow expressway construction. We don’t need more low-paying jobs, fast food filled interchanges and cookie cutter sprawl. I predict you will see intense opposition to I-3 in every mountain community and county that has the potential to be impacted. We are going to fight this tooth and nail. Since news of the proposed highway hit our local press about a month ago, the only support has been from those who hope to profit by selling property and those who have fallen for the argument that the highway may bring major employers and manufacturing jobs that will keep our younger generation from seeking employment elsewhere. Jobs on existing interstates have migrated south of the border, so I put this hope in the “pie in the sky” category.

A final justification for building this highway is that it would honor the sacrifice of the United States Army 3rd Infantry Division, which “sacrificed their blood and lives so that their fellow Americans can live in peace and freedom. These soldiers conquered Najaf, seized Saddam International Airport and Saddam Hussein's palaces, and led the fighting on the day of Baghdad's historic liberation.” This is the most disturbing of the three reasons. What blatantly false patriotism. What pandering platitudes. Where will it end, and where will the equity be if you start building highways in honor of every division that has fought in Iraq or all the places before or to come where our children have died? If you really want to honor U.S. troops, use the I-3 study funds to speed the armor plating of all the humvees in Iraq. Use the I-3 study funds to get every GI in harm’s way the best body armor money can buy. Use the I-3 study funds to extend the health care coverage of reserve and National Guard members after they come off of active duty and return to the states. We have injured soldiers whose benefits cease when they are no longer officially on active duty. This is wrong, immoral and shameful.

Sincerely,

Sam Williams
Sautee Nacoochee, GA

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Citizens Speak Letters-to-the-Editor and Editorial Opinions from the Regional and National Press and individuals' letters to the Stop I-3 Coalition

Stop 1-3 Before It Gets Started

Citizens Speak
Letters-to-the-Editor and Editorial Opinions from the Regional and National Press
and individuals' letters to the Stop I-3 Coalition