Here's some more information on CANAMEX:

http://www.aaroads.com/high-priority/corr26.html

It even talks about a designated "Interstate 11" for the US 93 stretch from Phoenix to Las Vegas including the Hoover Dam bypass, and then extended to Reno and Boise.

And here's the official CANAMEX website:

http://www.canamex.org/

The www.aaroads.com site list a High Priority Corridor 43: U.S. 95 in Idaho, which is described as the North-South backbone of the state of Idaho:

http://www.aaroads.com/high-priority/corr43.html

Here are all the U.S. Congress approved High Priority Corridors (well at least what they were in 2000):

http://www.aaroads.com/high-priority/table.html

Idaho likes to be a transportation stick in the mud. One example: the Amtrak Pioneer Line should have been resurrected, really shouldn't have been killed in the first place, and had Oregon and Utah on board to help fund it. Idaho, natch.

CANAMEX links Alberta with Mexico. Idaho is thinking "why not include BC?" The more miles that go through Idaho, the greater the economic impact... so steer them through Boise AND Northern Idaho if that can be helped (most traffic would conceivably go the I-5 route, but naturally this bypasses Vegas and this CANAMEX corridor... but it's likely that WA, OR, and CA charge higher fees and taxes for passage). Problem is that current US 95 and Idaho 55 do not adequately handle the anticipated truck traffic.

The real untapped (or undertapped) resources (timber, mining, etc) are in the North of Canada, perhaps the north of British Columbia and Alberta. The cheap labor for processing is in Mexico. There's the linkage.

Yes, that's the dilema of road building when you mention resources. One side is safety and accessibility and the effiecient movement of goods and services (well, that' the percieved side as there is also the railroads if we can get the mode of transportation going again) and then there is the other side which is the impact on the community (people that live along the highway, impact on the environment, impact on communities-soveriegn Native American lands and nations as well as small towns and farmland).

There are benefits to free trade, economically as well. But, not to sound too reactionary, a highway like this could also be perceived as that "Giant Sucking Sound" that Ross Perot use to talk about.

So there are a lot of pros and cons as well as opportunities in constraints. Its one alternative, but it would be good if only we had a better train system as well, for both cargo and passengers to reduce many impacts, but even then the train does have impact on the local environment and cultural and community resources both good and bad.