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| We so liked these I-69
opinions, that we have saved them here: The
Spectator April 4, 2004 http://www.tribstar.com/articles/2004/04/05/news/columnists/ncol03.txtOur state and federal leaders announced Monday that Uncle Sam prefers the expensive version of Interstate 69, too. Among the many factoids associated with this: The Indiana Department of Transportation figures that in addition to the other bonus features of more concrete in Greene County, it will produce 4,600 permanent new jobs by 2025. Figuring in the estimated cost of the highway -- $1.8 billion -- each new job will cost taxpayers $391,304. Oh, and 35 cents. At that rate, we'd make as many new jobs by creating 184 new professional baseball teams. Advocates predict $3.5 billion in personal income growth in Indiana as a result. Golly. For whom? Everything about this highway seems to fit onto a sliding scale that suits its advocates as needed. What was once a 12-minute savings in travel time from Evansville to Indianapolis morphed into 27 minutes Monday. What was once $1.8 billion cost has become $1.78 billion. Imagine that. Puttering around for a year saved us $20 million. At that rate, we could fuss around for another 90 and it shouldn't cost a dime. We sure could use all that money in the meantime. Earlier in the week, INDOT Commissioner J. Bryan Nicol told the Indianapolis Star that the cost increases with every delay, so the people putting up roadblocks to the construction are as responsible for the cost as INDOT. His office picked a route that will cost $1 billion more than the cheapest alternative. In other words, Nicol blamed extra cost on somebody who is questioning that additional cost. Nicol did note in the same article that the cost had to be weighed with the benefits, jobs and extra income, not to mention safety and travel time. One fellow this week said it's instructive to look at Interstate 57 from Effingham to Cairo to see exactly what a superhighway will do in a largely unpopulated region, one that has limited infrastructure existing -- stuff like sewers and electrical capacity, the things industries wants in place before they locate. Among all this silliness, the Spectator awards best in show to Sen. Larry Borst, R-Indianapolis, who distributed letters to newspapers throughout the state last year telling us that this road will never fit into our budget, and implying our Democratic Party governors -- the late Gov. Frank O'Bannon and current Gov. Joe Kernan -- were giving us yet another clear example of tax-and-spend Democrats. Days later, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mitch Daniels announced that he endorsed the same route as his opponent Kernan. Miraculously, Borst was on the platform with Daniels that day, telling us that with his man Mitch at the helm, we'll find the money. With leadership like that, is it any wonder Indiana is in debt, is losing jobs, has a low per-capita income, and hands more tax dollars over to the federal government than it gets back in return? Peter Ciancone's weekly column
appears on Sunday. He can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or
pete.ciancone@tribstar.com.
Indianapolis Star / Dan Carpenter
 April
7, 2004
Leave it to Indiana. Decades after we should have jumped on the information superhighway, we're about to stake roughly $2 billion on a concrete freeway that we didn't even need last century. Somehow, the same leaders who promise to wean us from an outmoded economy -- big business and the twin political parties -- see no inconsistency in lavishing sorely needed tax dollars on a technology that peaked, charitably speaking, with the OPEC embargo of 1973. We don't need the I-69 extension from Indianapolis to Evansville, except perhaps to keep our place on the dubious "NAFTA highway" from Canada to Mexico. A prime purpose of that larger project, of course, is to make places like Indiana faster to get through for jobs headed south; but perhaps being left out would be the greater of the evils. No doubt, the sand and gravel industry can make the case. Even assuming an I-69 extension is of value, the route chosen by the O'Bannon and Kernan administrations after a charade of "public input" is the worst possible alternative from every standpoint save that of the highway lobby and its kept politicians. It costs nearly twice as much as it would to upgrade existing Indy-to-Evansville highways; it bypasses the neediest areas of southern Indiana for all its portrayal as an economic lifeline; and it calls for unconscionable loss of farmland, woods and other God-given treasures. In the name of saving the hill country, the so-called new-terrain I-69 would dissect and destroy irreplaceable vastnesses of it. And would the sacrifice redeem Evansville, the third leg of this troika that wants a new-terrain I-69? No amount of pavement seems likely to save Evansville; but be that as it may, why does the choice of route matter to the city fathers when every one under consideration had the Pocket City as its destination? The strongest reason the proponents of worst-alternative I-69 have given for overspending by $800 million or so is that the new-terrain route would be maybe 15 to 30 minutes faster than others between Indianapolis and Evansville. Fabulous benefits are claimed for this advantage. The Indianapolis and state chambers of commerce, in a joint op-ed piece in The Star on Tuesday, proclaimed "an estimated $1.38 billion in drive time and vehicle operating costs between these cities will be saved over 20 years." What? Not an even 1.4? Of course, the glittering number, like the many others sprinkled like fairy dust through their sales pitch, is plucked out of the air. It is applied, after all, to a boondoggle with infinite variables that may still be delayed for years by opponents (Lord willing) and may well be unfinished when its opponents and proponents are arguing in heaven. Economic miracles from freeways require blind faith in the face of nagging reality. The fact is, Indiana is one of the most densely built states in interstate mileage, and a great many of those miles are quiet. Take a drive along the northern stretch of I-69. Or try I-64, which allows motorists to get from Louisville to St. Louis without being slowed down in southern Indiana. We're already an interstate state, in other words. While we were becoming that, we slid into a deeper economic ditch than about any other state. Now we propose to take a federal-state sum that's about twice our budget deficit to make more interstate as expensively as possible. If our thinking gets any more forward, we might decide to finish the Central Canal. Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172 or via e-mail at dan.carpenter@indystar.com .
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