Interstate 69 construction on the stretch between Evansville and Crane cleared another speed bump put down by highway opponents on Wednesday and raced on at a remarkable pace toward completion by the end of the year.
The Indiana Department of Transportation has said in recent days that it expects the 65-mile section between Evansville and the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center south of Bloomington to be opened to traffic late this year. That would be just before Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels completes his second and final term in office. Daniels is the man who created a privatization plan for a Northern Indiana toll road (Major Moves) as a way of paying for a significant section of I-69 and then approved the accelerated construction schedule now being utilized.
Contractors gained additional help from this summer's drought; the lack of rain gave workers more construction days. However, INDOT spokeswoman Cher Elliott says one concern about the accelerated work is that the lack of rain could cut down on water needed for the highway's concrete. Elliott's comments were taken from an Associated Press story and based on an interview with the Washington, Ind., Times-Herald.
The one group of people not happy about the fast moving construction project are highway opponents in the Bloomington area who have fought a long but failing campaign to stop construction on the direct route I-69 that will eventually go on to Bloomington and Indianapolis.
According to the AP, the Hoosier Environmental Council and the Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads lost another one this week when they learned that a federal judge had ruled against the organizations' claim that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated federal law by giving INDOT permission to fill wetlands and reroute some streams in Daviess and Greene counties. The suit said that the Corps violated the Clean Water Act by issuing a permit that would allow INDOT to dump fill into wetlands and streams, in order to build the highway between Washington and Crane. U.S. District Judge Larry McKinney denied the claim, saying the decision of the Corps to issue the permit was not arbitrary.
Just a thought: when we think about the thousands of miles of interstate highways that crisscross our great nation, moving people and products, fueling the economy and improving the lifestyles of all who have reasonable access, we wonder what might have happened had visionaries been blocked from building those interstate highways, had the naysayers carried the day, and prevented the progress that still serves us today.
Much of Indiana, especially Indianapolis, shared in that wealth of original interstate highway construction, helping make it the city it is today. But the area of Indiana between Evansville and Indianapolis was forgotten — the infamous missing spoke — until now. All Indiana is doing is helping Southwestern Indiana catch up.