Dear Governor Mitch Daniels,

Thank you for changing INDOT leadership and your strong remarks regarding the political basis for recent INDOT misdeeds and misinformation. 

I hope one day soon you will meet with opponents of I-69.  We believe with a few minutes of your time we will provide important documented facts that have not been given reasoned consideration.   Facts we feel you should have at hand in the decision making process.  We simply ask you allow us to make you aware of "all" the facts, the opponents as well as the boosters.

I have been a self employed Indiana merchant for 30 years.  I welcome your business approach to I-69.  After a decade of study of this issue, I don't believe I-69 can stand up to honest evaluation.

We continue to hope you will stop the proposed I-69 new terrain route as just too costly in every way with too little possibility of positive returns.  We are convinced we can provide you with sufficient information to side-track the proposed route which only saves a little travel time between Evansville and Indianapolis and cannot otherwise be economically justified.  There are much better solutions to transportation problems in Indiana.

We hope your recent statements strongly supporting I-69 are in fact the process of educating Hoosiers. 
As Senator Richard Lugar said:
  “All Hoosiers may wish to discuss the priority of such expenditures and the probability of potential public and private economic gains at a time of extraordinary national security, health care, social security, and education needs in Indiana and throughout our country."
Today's editorial in The Elkart Truth, "Remember Elkart County?", may prove that this process has started.

You have said your only justification for supporting I-69 is the economic advantages for the State in cities like Muncie and Fort Wayne.  I believe an honest cost analysis compared to business return will convince you, if you aren't already, that new terrain I-69 will provide no short or long term economic benefit to the State.   Our opposition is based upon sound fiscal analysis, appropriate management, and the devastating impact the project would have on family and home. 


COUNT US! www.i69tour.org does not list how many acres of forest or wetland will be taken, but documents costs & projected benefits.

• To make our arguments, we use official documents of INDOT, FHWA, other national and state government documents and studies, news reports from major media sources, published academic studies, and carefully documented in house research.
  
• We look at  income data.   I-69, 3C would serve the existing highest income per capita population in Indiana of any interstate that could be proposed... If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  
• We understand agriculture is a business and our farms were laid out on a north-south, east-west grid and FHWA's too costly mitigation solution.
  
• With US Department of Commerce survey data, we document Indiana manufacturing companies list interstates very low on their needs.   
  
• We track and are building on the trucking industry wish; "Fix the roads we have".
• Our Crane data comes from the Military, The National Governors Association and Crane employees. 
  
• NGA best practices and BRAC guidelines suggest "I-69 for Crane" was a bad idea before 9-11.
• We preserve the I-69 history-- how we got here and the mistakes along the way. 
  
• NAFTA's Corridor 18 was a mistake of Congress at a time of plenty of pork to go around, guided by a bad Evansville idea and funded by Texas and Louisiana money.
  
• A COUNT US! member and elected Surveyor educated in GIS documents proved I-69 would be  a third NAFTA interstate 90 miles +/- longer than the others and now more likely $40 Billion than the $10 Billion sold congress. 
• FHWA data with Dept. of Workforce development and census data prove looking at existing Interstates document I-69's hoped for benefits are mostly pipe dreams.   At #4 in rural interstate density, we need look no farther than Indiana's boarders to see highways are not job programs or keys to economic development any more.  Simple cost divided by expected benefit data provided by INDOT proves this analysis absurd.
  
• "Intermodal" is the informed word in transportation today.  
• We document INDOT/ BLA lies that will greatly increase mitigation cost of I-69, especially for Karst and the Patoka bridge.
• We know that $30 million spent on studies is a small fraction of the well-over three billion dollars that the four segments of I-69 in Indiana are proposed to cost already. We express this as 1,000,000.00 + 1,000,000.00, three-thousand times vs thirty times.
  

Please if you do nothing else, talk about the Indiana cost of I-69 by listing all the segments and demand that the media do the same: Henderson Kentucky to I-64, I-64 to I-465 at existing SR37, from SR37 at I-465 to existing I-69, and the upgrade of existing I-69.  All of those are required for study by the Corridor 18 project and the first three are required to “finish” I-69 in Indiana.  Using the old cost from the DEIS of $1.78 Billion for just 3-C to represent the entire cost of I-69 while overstating benefits for a completed I-69 has been patently dishonest.  Evansville won't be happy if I-69 stops at building 3-C, since the number $1.78 B was estimated, never has building only 3C been the plan.  The 12,305 trucks per that the EIS predict will be on I-69 aren't going to turn north from I-64.* 

BTW the personal income growth per capita predicted in the EIS for 3C was less than $0.  Nicol skipped all around that as he frequently quoted the core goal report on Personal Income Growth.  The concluding paragraph of the INDOT press release announcement for the completion of the EIS before going for the ROD was so dishonest that every phrase, not just every sentence, was a lie, a distortion or an omission of fact.

John Smith
COUNT US!
<contact information deleted here>

* Actually as studied many of the trucks won't need Kentucky traffic to boost their numbers. The EIS Freight hours saved numbers were greatly based on the false concept that coal now going by train to Chicago will for some reason be loaded on trucks at a rate of three trucks per current train car and be shipped in directions north toward Detroit.  Proving I-69 is needed is like proving the sun circles the earth.  So far the 3000 pages of study for just 3C has only managed to bury and blur the truth and prove exactly the opposite of the BLA and INDOT conclusions.