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Our Press Release makes mark at Bloomington H-T:
Bloomington Herald Times
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2005/06/30/news.new.1120107476.sto
I-69 foes say INDOT's funding
deficit worse than recent reports
By Kurt Van der Dussen
331-4372 | kvd@heraldt.com
June 30, 2005
The Indiana Department of Transportation statement that the start of
Interstate 69 is further off than previously estimated prompted a
caustic
reaction from project opponents Wednesday.
They say INDOT and Gov. Mitch Daniels still aren’t telling even half
the
story.
Four opposition groups alleged Wednesday that what INDOT has said is a
10-year project funding deficit of a little more than $2 billion
including the extension of I-69 actually is a 25-year deficit that is
about $4.4 billion without I-69 and more than $6 billion with it.
INDOT spokesman Gary Abell said late Wednesday afternoon that INDOT had
just received a copy of the opponents’ statement and hadn’t yet had a
chance to evaluate its accuracy.
In May, INDOT officials announced after reviewing the 10-year projects
list compiled under previous administrations that there simply is no
way
to do them all.
They said there was a gap of at least $2.1 billion between the cost of
the projects on the list and the revenue coming in for them.
Then on Monday, INDOT Commissioner Tom Sharp stated that INDOT records
from 2002, 2003 and 2004 show its project people were saying
construction
on I-69 might not even start until 2017, at the same time
then-Commissioner Bryan Nicol was telling the public it would be
finished
by then.
Wednesday, four anti-I-69 groups Citizens for Appropriate Rural
Roads,
the Hoosier Environmental Council, COUNT US! and the Marion County
Alliance of Neighborhood Associations released their own findings
and
claims about INDOT’s 10-year project funding deficit.
They said they compared the projects listed in INDOT’s survey with its
long-range transportation plan, which runs out to 2030.
They said they found 116 projects totaling $6.2 billion that appear in
both the 10-year survey and the 25-year longer-range plan. Of those,
they
said they found that 100 projects totaling more than $2 billion
scheduled
in the 25-year plan for the coming decade were omitted by INDOT
officials
from their 10-year survey of the estimated project funding deficit,
which
already was $2.1 billion.
They also said they found 53 projects listed in the 10-year survey that
were not included in the 25-year long-range survey. They say a dozen of
those were added in June by INDOT to its 10-year survey. “We have no
ability to estimate the cost of these projects,” the four groups said.
“Looking only at the projects listed in the Long Range Transportation
Plan for the next 10 years, the new highway funding gap exceeds the
expected revenue by a staggering $4.4 billion,” they wrote. “This is
before adding the cost of the proposed extension of I-69 or the cost of
the 53 brand new projects. Including the proposed extension of I-69
balloons the funding gap to $6.1 billion. Again, we have no estimate
for
the cost of the brand new projects.”
“The new highway funding gap is at least twice that claimed by INDOT.
Including the proposed extension of I-69 in the next 10 years creates
an
astronomical funding gap, proving once again that the proposed
extension
of I-69 threatens EVERY OTHER proposed new highway project in the state
of Indiana,” their written statement concluded.
The groups said that “We encourage legislators to take a long, hard
look
at INDOT’s plans and seriously consider if the proposed I-69 project is
feasible.”
Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads president Tom Tokarski asked
whether
Gov. Mitch Daniels is “setting up citizens and legislators for a major
gas tax increase or for privatization or tolling of highway projects?”
He also criticized Daniels’ statement after Sharp’s that it’s his goal
to
speed up the start of I-69 from what records now show the prior
administration actually thought would be 2017.
“This is going to confuse everyone,” Tokarski said.
“Our message remains the same: there is no money to build I-69,” he
said.
“Trying to build it with existing revenue sources will mean cutting
many
other projects around the state. His ‘creative financing’ options need
to
be spelled out so citizens and legislators know what he is talking
about
and the impacts it will have on them.”
He added that “The Daniels administration is finding out that I-69 is
like a wildcat on a leash. They can’t control it and they won’t cut it
loose so they are being jerked all over the place by it. I say let it
go
and let’s get on with planning a transportation system for the future.
The last thing Indiana needs now is a $3 billion boondoggle to pay for
and maintain. Mark my word, it will be at least $3 billion.”
© 1997 - 2005 Hoosiertimes Inc. No commercial
reproduction
without prior written consent.
*******************************
Bloomington's Herald Times has a history of stated support of New
Terrain I-69. The tide turns:
Bloomington Herald-Times
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2005/06/30/digitalcity.0630-HT-A8_RDS18394.sto?lin
I-69 has turned into unlikely
proposition
Opinion
June 30, 2005
The Indiana Department of Transportation may well have dropped the
guillotine on the Interstate 69 project with its announcement that the
project start could be as much as a dozen years off in 2017.
At this point, the public credibility of this project has to be so
seriously damaged that someone just ought to hang a big sign on it
saying
"HMS Titanic."
The handwriting began appearing on the wall earlier this month when
Gov.
Mitch Daniels met with The Herald-Times editorial board and made it
pretty clear he wasn't expecting anything to happen anytime soon on the
project, at least in terms of starting construction. As in, like, a
dozen
years or so, maybe.
The governor candidly said he came to office naively believing the
story
that the entire project would be finished in 12-14 years. He called
that
"baloney," saying that might be when it would start.
His biting conclusion was based on the fact that his new regime in
INDOT
was finding that the old INDOT's long-range project list was a sham.
The
cost of the highway projects across Indiana it was proposing for the
next
decade, including I-69, would outrun the available money by $2.1
billion.
Quick-witted I-69 foes jumped on that announcement to note
tongue-in-cheek that the sum could be wiped out in one stroke of the
pen
just by canceling I-69. Not only was that mathematically correct, but
it
could prove prescient.
Meanwhile, consider what is happening in the world. On Monday, the
price
of oil broke through the $60-per-barrel level for the first time in
history, and there is no sign it is headed down. Energy experts warn
that
the world will reach its peak level of annual oil production in the
next
few years - some say as early as 2007 - and from then on, it will
slowly
trend downward while the price per gallon is forced ruthlessly upward
by
still-rising demand.
The scenario is chilling for oil and gasoline costs. Chances are by
2017
- the year the O'Bannon-Kernan administration really expected I-69
construction to start, according to records current INDOT officials
have
dug up - the automotive market will have dramatically changed and
perhaps
individual automotive use.
If vehicles are fueled by something other than petroleum products, and
the new fuel source is affordable and practical for long-distance
driving, there still could be a demand for I-69 in 2017. If not,
chances
are there won't be sufficient vehicular demand to justify what by then
could be a $5 billion to $10 billion project instead of the current $2
billion, depending on inflation.
Never has I-69 looked less likely of becoming a reality than it does
this
week. And in the process, any further spending of millions of dollars
to
identify a route for a highway that at best is well over a decade from
groundbreaking may be throwing good money after bad.
Besides that, the best specific highway path, or even general corridor,
may well be dramatically different in a dozen years, after another
decade
of development south of Indianapolis and around Bloomington, Washington
and Evansville.
© 1997 - 2005 Hoosiertimes Inc. No commercial
reproduction
without prior written consent.