Grass and hay give way to concrete as I-69 is constructed near Bolin Lane in rural Monroe County. Staff photo by Jeremy Hogan
I-69 south of Indiana
Kentucky
Estimated cost: $1.06 billion
Estimated date of completion: No timetable
Estimated cost: $2 billion
Estimated date of completion: No timetable
Estimated cost: $3 billion
Estimated date of completion: No timetable
Estimated cost: $2.9 billion
Estimated date of completion: No timetable
*Information for Mississippi and Texas was not available before the deadline for this story.
In the early 1990s, supporters of the Interstate 69 project said the new highway would link Canada, the United States and Mexico. It was going to improve connectivity and spur economic development for rural, isolated communities in middle America. All that was needed was the money to build it.
More than two decades later, supporters are still touting those benefits, they're still in need of funding, and the project is still unfinished.
The Herald-Times spoke with officials in the six Southern states the interstate will pass through to find out what progress has been made and how long it will be before Hoosiers can drive to Mexico without hitting any stoplights.
When Brad Schneider talks about Kentucky's progress on I-69, he likes to use a horse-racing metaphor.
"We got a late start out of the gate, but now we're toward the front of the pack," said the president and CEO of Kyndle, a combined chamber of commerce and economic development organization in northwest Kentucky.
Kentucky put itself in a position to have an interstate running through the western part of the state a generation ago.
"Kentucky bit the bullet 30 years ago when it built the Kentucky Parkway system," Schneider said. Before the parkway system, much of the western portion of the state lacked access to four-lane highways.
"We suffered economically and personally because of accidents on windy, two-lane country roads," Schneider said. "The state took it upon itself to fix the issue."
Using tolls to fund the project, Kentucky built four-lane, high-speed, limited access highways. Things like the width of medians and the heights of bridges might be a little different from an interstate, but sometimes people driving along them don't even know the difference, Schneider said.
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