http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=14260
I-69 opponents plan arguments
Interstate to fill missing link between Canada and
Mexico
By Ben Cunningham
Indiana Daily Student
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Published Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Opponents of I-69 in Bloomington vowed not to give up the
fight to stop the new-terrain interstate route when the decision
was announced in January.
Today they are organizing their forces.
Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads is holding an
organizational meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the Monroe County Public
Library to discuss options and plans for their future fight.
Kevin Enright, Bloomington resident and former Monroe
County surveyor from 1997 to 2000, said he will present
information at the meeting that the proposed I-69 route through
southern Indiana, Kentucky and western Tennessee is longer
than existing routes.
I-69 officials have said the proposed route is a missing link "in a
corridor that has a high demand for NAFTA associated goods
movement," according to their Feb. 7, 2000, environmental study.
But Enright said he did not understand why there was a need to
build a new interstate when a shorter one already exists.
The "NAFTA superhighway," which is planned to connect
Mexico and Canada through the United States, is in the planning
stages through most of the states, including Kentucky,
Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.
Kentucky is still in the preliminary stages of their planning. They
finished their public comment period in late September, but they
have not announced a final decision or timeline on their part of
the route after Evansville, according to the Kentucky
Transportation Cabinet Web site.
The nationwide route was first approved by Congress as a
high-priority corridor from Indianapolis to Memphis, Tenn., in
the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act
legislation, according to the Tennessee Department of
Transportation Web site.
U.S. officials mandated that I-69 serve Evansville, Memphis,
Shreveport, Lou., and Houston, Tex., in their legislation.
But Enright said he did not understand why Evansville was on
the list when a faster route from Indianapolis to Memphis
already exists.
He said the existing interstate route from Indianapolis to
Memphis -- Interstate 70 from Indianapolis to Effingham, Ill.,
then I-57 south to I-55 in Missouri and south on I-55 to
Memphis -- is a distance of 447 miles. But Enright said the
proposed I-69 route is a distance of 456 miles, almost nine miles
longer.
The proposed route follows the Pennyrile Parkway in Kentucky
south from Evansville to the Western Kentucky Parkway,
Enright said. There it turns west until the road reaches Interstate
24, where it will go south along the Purchase Parkway.
There Enright said I-69 is planned to head south into Tennessee,
where the route will follow U.S. 51 all the way to the Memphis
city limits.
Proponents of the interstate construction have maintained the
route will save travel time, Enright said, but he does not see how
this is the case because of the longer distance.
"We have to counter a lot of these arguments that are just
statements based on no fact," Enright said. "I think it's important
to issue statements that we can back up with facts."
He said he hopes to get his findings out to the public at tonight's
meeting so they can know the facts of the issue.
I-69 no shortcut, surveyor reports
By JENNIFER WHITSON Courier & Press Indianapolis bureau (317)
631-7405 or jwhitson@indyweb.net
February 1, 2003
INDIANAPOLIS - A former Monroe County surveyor said he crunched the numbers
and an Interstate 69 connection from Indianapolis to Memphis would not
be any shorter
than existing highways.
"I understand (Southwestern Indiana's) desire to have improved access to
the rest of the
state," said Kevin Enright, who studies geographic information systems
at Indiana
University. "Southwestern Indiana has been neglected, neglected, neglected.
But I don't
see that there's been an economic or transportation case made for the necessity
of this
highway project."
Enright said he added up how long the potential I-69 Indianapolis to Memphis
section
might be.
He then compared it to traveling from Memphis to Indianapolis by going
north on
Interstate 55, east on Interstate 57 until connecting with Interstate 70.
He said the I-69
route, which included some assumptions because the corridors are not finalized,
was
seven to 10 miles longer than using the existing roads.
Enright said the analysis is not complete yet. He still has to figure in
any added mileage
from I-69 crossing hillier terrain than the existing route.
"I don't see (I-69) becoming a major commerce thoroughfare because it's
not going to
compete against the shorter, flatter existing routes," he said.
Calls to the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway
Administration were not returned Friday afternoon.
But Matthew Meadors, president of the Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of
Commerce,
said Congress mandated that I-69 link Memphis and Indianapolis via Evansville
"for all
the reasons we as a state have debated for years."
And he said research he has seen on commercial trucking needs dispute Enright's
claim
that a completed I-69 would be used.
"Every interview that I've read with truck drivers has made it clear to
me that not only
would the route be used, but that it's highly desired," he said.
Enright told members of Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads about his
findings at an
organizational meeting this week, but Sandra Tokarski, a leader with the
group, said the
analysis didn't change which route the organization would back.
Tokarski said there have always been members who wanted a "no-build" alternative,
but
said her sense was that most supported routing I-69 through Terre Haute.
"We're going to continue doing what we've been doing - educating the public
and
elected officials," she said. "My sense of it is that people support U.S.
41 to I-70, but
it's important to look at whatever else is out there."
Andrew Knott, air and energy policy director with the Hoosier Environmental
Council,
said he had heard about Enright's analysis, but the council is still supporting
U.S.
41/I-70 route for I-69.
"We're not promoting that," he said. "Someone has just been pointing that
out."
I-69 Route
The Issue: Former Monroe County
official says existing interstates are
just as short. Our View: Project
involves much more than
measuring miles.
February 4, 2003
A former Monroe County, Ind., surveyor has concluded that for
transportation and economic needs, an Interstate 69 link
through Southwestern Indiana isn't needed at all. That, of
course, discounts the years of study that concluded the I-69
issue is about far more than saving time between Indianapolis
and Memphis, Tenn. In fact, some of it involved saving time and
miles between Indianapolis and Evansville, something that
cannot be accomplished by routing the highway west from
Indianapolis into Illinois.
Even so, according to Kevin Enright, who now studies geographic
information systems at Indiana University, he did the math and
found that existing interstates measure nearly the same
distance between Indianapolis and Memphis as the chosen route
that includes Evansville and would run through the heart of
Southwestern Indiana.
In a story Saturday by Jennifer Whitson of the Courier & Press
Indianapolis bureau, Enright said that a route on Interstate 70
from Indianapolis, west into Illinois, then south on Interstate 57
and then Interstate 55 to Memphis, Tenn., would be about the
same distance as the proposed I-69 route. Enright, of
Bloomington, Ind., said also that he knows "Southwestern
Indiana has been neglected, neglected, neglected."
Yes, it has, as motorists, citizens, businesses, officials and this
newspaper have been pointing out for decades.
Enright added, "But I don't see that there has been an economic
or transportation case made for the necessity of this highway
project."
Of course, those issues were addressed in the Indiana
Department of Transportation's just completed study of
transportation needs. There is a good example of one of those
needs, covered in a story that appeared Sunday in the Courier &
Press, this one from Jessica Wehrman of our Washington bureau.
She wrote that the Southern Indiana Business Alliance is relieved
that the chosen I-69 route through Southwestern Indiana would
run near the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division.
That's important because Crane employs 4,000 people whose
jobs would be lost should the base fall victim to the next round
of base closings, expected in 2005. The business alliance sees
an I-69 connection for Crane as important in making the case for
preserving the base and those 4,000 jobs. That is but one
powerful economic argument for building the highway through
Southern Indiana. After all, job losses have been significant to
Indiana's current economic woes. In 2001 alone, Indiana lost
22,000 manufacturing jobs.
To abandon this project now would only perpetuate the neglect
of Southern Indiana.
My own estimates (using the center of Indianapolis along the I-65/70
“eastern inner loop” and the I-40/240 Midtown
interchange in Memphis) suggest that the distances are approximately
equal; if Kentucky were to construct a direct connection from
Eddyville to Henderson, which is unlikely (for good reason, I might
add) I-69 would be significantly shorter.
The tricky thing in such an analysis is choosing the end-points. If you
started in Arlington, an eastern suburb of Memphis, and ended in
south Indianapolis, I-69 whould actually be quite a bit shorter. More to
the point, choosing other end points significantly changes the equation;
starting even a few miles south of Indianapolis, in Martinsville, I-69
becomes a clear winner. If the sole point of I-69 was to reduce travel
distance from Indianapolis to Memphis, Enright's critique would be
valid, but it assumes that Indianapolis and Memphis are the only points
of any value on the route; indeed, that the only reason someone would
take I-69 would be to get from Memphis to Indianapolis or vice versa.
As it is, however, it doesn't add much to the debate; and, if anything,
it
provides a stronger argument against the U.S. 41/I-70 alignment
through southwest Indiana than it does against a “new
terrain” route via Bloomington.