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2 trucking executives cool to I-69
New route isn't vital and money could be better
spent, they say
July 26, 2004
Two of the nation's largest trucking companies are questioning the value of extending I-69 from Indianapolis to Mexico, suggesting it would parallel existing routes and waste federal road dollars. The concern comes as one of the project's key pieces -- a $1.8 billion, 142-mile stretch between Indianapolis and Evansville -- moves into final planning and design. It also offers a glimpse into the project's vast scale beyond Indiana and the lofty stakes behind the construction of a highway that some believe will serve as a 1,600-mile asphalt backbone for North American free trade. Such questions about the need for the highway are significant because they strike at the heart of the project's staunchest supporters, who have cast the superhighway as a potential boon for Indiana and a vital continental link between the bookends of the American automotive industry: the Midwest and factories along the Mexican border. Slated for completion over the next few decades, I-69 would bisect Indiana diagonally from northeast to southwest and stretch across eight states from Canada to Mexico. Currently, the highway extends from Indianapolis north through Fort Wayne to Port Huron, Mich. Two top trucking executives offered support for the transcontinental highway "in concept" but said the route would provide few global benefits until fully built. Even then, they said, the highway might offer only a slight savings in time and convenience and is not a "must-have" link. They pointed out that several established trucking routes already snake their way north from southern Texas to the nation's heartland. Moreover, they cringed at the superhighway's estimated price tag of around $8 billion to $9 billion, saying federal dollars should be spent, instead, to reconstruct decaying infrastructure around aging major cities such as Chicago and Detroit -- both notorious among truckers for being perpetually traffic-clogged. "Adding a stretch in Indiana isn't going to be as beneficial as improving the existing highway system," said Thomas M. Glaser, chief operating officer for Indianapolis-based Celadon Trucking Services Inc., one of the nation's largest trucking firms and a major hauler between Canada and Mexico. "Why do we want to duplicate what we've got, especially when we've got roadbeds in place that we can improve?" Wayne Lubner, a vice president for Wisconsin-based Schneider National Inc., the nation's largest privately held truckload carrier, acknowledged that I-69 would provide the first direct connection between Mexico and the industrial Midwest. But Lubner said it is large-scale projects like I-69 that have led to a protracted fight over federal highway dollars on Capitol Hill. President Bush and House and Senate leaders remain at odds over a massive highway bill that totals about $295 billion over six years. The political gamesmanship, Lubner and Glaser said, has held up crucial road improvements. "Priority number one is that we have to maintain the existing highway system," Lubner said. "At the expense of infrastructure, I-69 would not be a trade-off that would be advantageous. I-69 would be nice to have, but it is not a necessity." The view of trucking executives such as Glaser and Lubner has raised eyebrows because the trucking industry often has been among the vanguard advocating new highway construction. Others in the industry disagreed. "We have more interstates converging in Indianapolis than any other city in the country. . . I-69 will add to that great network," said Kenneth E. Cragen, president of the Indiana Motor Truck Association. "These trucks are going to go to their destinations whether they are traveling through Indiana or not. I-69 just makes Indiana more of (a player)." Though the idea of an interstate connection between Indianapolis and Evansville has been floated since the 1940s, it was not until the late 1980s that supporters here began pitching I-69 as a transcontinental superhighway. The 1994 signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement bolstered project support, said James G. Newland, executive director of the Indianapolis-based I-69 Mid-Continent Highway Coalition, the project's chief national advocacy group. "Indiana is a key state in the development of our nation's transportation system," Newland said. "And I-69 is the missing link." The Indianapolis-to-Evansville piece advanced in March after federal officials endorsed a specific route and allowed the last stage of planning and design to begin. Indiana transportation officials recently opened six offices along the highway's route to collect public input as planners whittle down the final right of way. The proposed section of I-69 through Indiana, as in other states, has sparked heated protests from environmentalists and led to a fervent debate among communities and business leaders over its exact route. Newland and other advocates argue the highway will spur economic growth in long-isolated regions of rural southwestern Indiana and provide interstate access to Indiana University in Bloomington and Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center, which is under threat of closing. "For Indianapolis and southwestern Indiana, this is like hitting a home run with the bases loaded," Newland said. "It's a grand slam for businesses and industry." What's more, they said, the project has taken on renewed importance as Indianapolis rises in significance as a key Rust Belt hub for trucking, shipping, warehousing and distribution -- low-profile industries that city leaders see as the bedrock of long-term economic growth. Fifteen percent of all freight traveling through the United States each day stops at some point in Indiana, said William D. Friedman, executive director of the Ports of Indiana. Roughly three-quarters of North American freight travels by truck, according to federal estimates. A completed I-69, Friedman said, eventually would become a tributary of new commerce for Indianapolis and boost the Hoosier state's strategic importance in the obscure but highly profitable business of shipping and logistics. The highway also would alleviate a projected significant increase in truck traffic -- 40 percent over the next decade, according to industry estimates. "An inland city like Indianapolis needs to develop reasons for commerce to come into that city," Friedman said. "When you build highways (like I-69), you're getting that cargo to stop and you're adding value to (local industry)." Even so, trucking experts say the importance of I-69 in the scheme of international freight remains unclear. Most truckers carrying Mexican cargo use I-35, an interstate stretching from Laredo, Texas, to Minnesota. Northbound truckers on I-35 often stop in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, which has emerged as one of the nation's key junctions for NAFTA freight, Glaser said. From there, there's easy access to much of the nation. "The industrial Midwest is in need of (access) to and from Mexico, but the structure is already there," Glaser said. But Morton J. Marcus , a former Indiana University economist, argued the highway's impact will have less to do with its endpoints than in connecting the disparate regions of Indiana and the Mississippi River Valley along the way. "If you want to go from Columbus (Ohio) to St. Louis, you don't have to go through Indianapolis," Marcus said. "But that misses the whole point of what's in between." Call Star reporter Theodore Kim at (317) 444-6247. |
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