Transportation Solution

To the Editor:

They say that North Dakota is the Saudi Arabia of wind power. With the energy emergency in the world, I believe wind power is one of the best ways to create renewable energy.

North Dakota also has a mass transportation inadequacy. Amtrak does not stop at our state capital Bismarck.

Greyhound only stops in Fargo when traveling across all of North Dakota. We all know the high price of air fares flying to our smaller cities.

Here is my idea. Build wind towers along I-94 from Fargo to the Montana border, also along I-29 from Fargo to Grand Forks, then along Highway 2 across the state to Minot and also to Williston and Dickinson, one big rectangle. On the sides of these tall super strong poles holding the wind blades, the state could build a high speed monorail system to North Dakotas major cities.

The monorail could be state owned and the power to run the monorail would be run off some of the energy created by the wind generators. This system would be great for North Dakota citizens, business people, tourists, and most importantly, would save gas. It would pay for itself.

Even if these wind generators only served North Dakota, just think of the energy our state would save. The future is here and we have to come up with new ideas, even if they sound overwhelming. We can no longer give billions of dollars to our enemies every year for oil, so we can continue to pollute our air and go deeper into debt.

As President John F. Kennedy said, “Americans do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” If we could go to the moon in 1969, we can start solving our energy problems in 2008.

Bruce D. Brovold
Fargo