The road building industry has learned the hard way that it must deliver on the promise to carefully look at all reasonable alternatives and fully consider both sides of the ledger. The MDOT study appears to be structured as a true public process that warrants cautious optimism. However, the values of a public process are jeopardized by our ignorance and misconception. A public process requires our service to it. The process does not exist to serve us.
Service is a core right and a responsibility.
If the public horse is not pulling the public cart, then we should not be under the delusion that it is a public procession. A broad coalition of special or self interest draft horses is not a valid substitute for the public horse. Burdened by self interests, there is little hope for the process to yield true progress. Unfettered, there is no limit to its potential. To truly serve the public, we must unburden the process of our desire to control it.