CONVENTIONAL WISDOM sometimes stops making sense. Some longtime Greater Romans, while wondering where all the logging trucks went that used to clog Turner McCall Boulevard/Shorter Avenue before all the shopping traffic took it over bumper-to-bumper, might recall that this county’s worst drawback is supposed to be that it is not on an interstate. Hence, supposedly, it is doomed to be an economic cripple.

Really? Maybe it is time to start wondering about that even though there will likely never be an interstate closer than 20 miles off.

Consider: Northern Georgia Logistics has opened a 250,000-square-foot portion of the old Mohawk distribution center in the Shannon as a warehousing operation. That means trucks in, trucks out. Just up the road, of course, the Lowe’s distribution center will soon have dozens if not hundreds of trucks coming in and out daily.

And the transportation committee of the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce has started openly speculating of developing an “intermodal terminal” in the county, perhaps at the old Lindale Mill site on the Norfolk Southern rail line. That means truck trailers riding piggyback on rail cars for long hauls both coming in and going out and being switched from one hauler to another. Particularly for heavy freight, rail is the least expensive shipping method per mile over long distances.

Greater Rome has developed a lot of highways of various dimensions running off in every which direction.

Hmm ... maybe comparative isolation will turn out to be a good thing in yet another way beyond lifestyle and cost of living.