Much of Atlantica's momentum as a bi-national economic region comes from the emergence of Halifax as a crossroads of global trade.
      Container ships now under development will dwarf those in use today, in some cases tripling the number of containers that can be transported on one vessel. Halifax is the only port north of Virginia deep enough to handle ships of that size, and the only East Coast Canadian port likely to emerge as a hub port from which containers are shipped elsewhere via rail, truck and short-sea shipping.
      Getting that cargo to interior Canadian and U.S. destinations without the added time and expense of bypassing Maine and northern New England would significantly enhance Halifax's standing as a logistics center. And all of Atlantica would benefit.
      But that's something of a moot point as long as Maine lacks east-west infrastructure on which to move the freight. "The transportation systems coming out of Halifax, very understandably for

"The U.S.-Canada border is a political boundary, but what can we do to make it more business-sensitive?" - Kevin Pelley, Kohltech Windows

political and national unity reasons, go around Maine, which is not the most efficient route to Montreal or Toronto," says Timothy Woodcock, an attorney with the law firm of Eaton Peabody in Bangor, Maine, and a former mayor of that city. "That's an inefficiency that the whole region endures. It was one thing when Canada and the United States had largely separate economies, but in the new world we are dealing in, commerce is looking for efficiencies. You have to re-evaluate whether having those kinds of inefficiencies when other regions don't have them serves your long-term interests."
      The irony of the U.S. side of the border being less equipped to facilitate regional commerce than the Atlantic Provinces is not lost on Woodcock. "It is a fascinating fact that in the creation of the Interstate system, the northern New England states and eastern New York did not think to connect themselves to one another," he relates. Interstate highways in the region run north and south, mirroring the rivers used for commercial transportation prior to the combustion engine. "If it is very difficult to get from one end of the region to another, as it is to get from, say, Bangor to Plattsburgh, New York, or Montréal, then commerce follows the line of least resistance. Where you can get safely and efficiently in a time-effective way, your trading patterns will follow that route."
      The onus is largely on Maine and northern New England, therefore, to deliver the infrastructure needed to help make Atlantica a reality.
      "But we do not have a common economy across northern New England — we don't even think we should," says Woodcock. "And that's a regional inefficiency that I think has an impact on Atlantic Canada."
      The Canadian side, too, could use some work, adds Kohltech Windows' Pelley. "There is a need to take a hard look at infrastructure going north-south on the Canadian side," he says, pointing out that Canada's east-west access in the region is fairly well served by rail and highway. The trouble comes in linking Canada's east-west assets with the U.S.'s north-south strengths.
      Meanwhile Halifax and Saint John, New Brunswick, have "good, natural harbors," says Woodcock, referring to Halifax's port as "an astonishing regional asset, extraordinarily capable in a world that looks as though it's heading more and more into a containerized world — and a world in which regions are going to flourish based on their particular strengths. But it is not as efficiently connected to the rest of North America as it might be."
      That might not change any time soon, but the notion that the northeastern states and provinces "are all in this together" in terms of economic prosperity is increasingly understood in the region. New Brunswick's former premier, Frank McKenna, is Canada's new ambassador to the United States, and both of Maine's senators, among other elected officials, understand the importance of cross-border and inter-regional cooperation on economic development issues; industry already "gets it." If the interested parties can stay on the same page in the development hymnal, then Atlantica could once again be a leading trade corridor on the global stage.