Daily Blog: The Road to the Future

For many four and five-figure cities, the road to the future is the Ports to Plains Corridor:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3xW1n26HPCBOoIPX5Ho4CziIg9wD997QN400


This highway carries goods and products from "the Port of Raymond on the U.S. border with Saskatchewan to Laredo, Texas. It winds its way through Texas, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and North and South Dakota." Now there are plans to expand this corridor.

Along this road are many mid-sized cities who reap economic benefit from the road. One such town is Limon, Colorado, population 2071.

According to the article:

"In Limon, where the town center was nearly destroyed by a 1990 tornado, Kiely said Ports to Plains will lure manufacturing to supplement lodging and food, which employ roughly 300 people.

"Limon's central Colorado location, cheap land prices, open space for trucks and
lack of congestion can be attractive to companies, he said.

"About 2 million trucks pass through Limon every year — 1.3 million on the corridor and 700,000 on Interstate 70, which runs west to Denver. The way Kiely sees it, a town created in 1888 as a water stop for trains can retain youth who now leave for better opportunities elsewhere.

"'That's what keeps a town going,' he said."

Transportation is an economic lifeline in many communities. And it certainly is in
the mid-sized cities along the Ports to Plains Corridor.