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Thursday, January 25, 2007

Ind. Gov't. - Even more on: Governor's Illiana and Commerce Connector proposals under fire

A story by Theordore Kim posted shortly after noon today on the Indianapolis Star website reports:

Facing mounting concerns about Gov. Mitch Daniels’ proposal for a privately-operated toll bypass near Indianapolis, Senate leaders today defended the project and said opposition is typical when any new highway is first proposed.

“Historically, if you look at what’s happened with other interstates around Indiana and nationally, there’s a lot of public discussion and some concerns from those whose homes and farms are where this road might ultimate be built,” Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said at a Statehouse news conference today.
Long said the project would spur a new wave of economic development and help Indiana catch up with growing traffic demand.

But in the end, Long said the legislature and governor would listen to the public and could abandon the project if they did not believe the support is there.

Sen. Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, is sponsoring Senate Bill 1, which would allow the Daniels administration to pursue separate privately-built toll roads in Central and Northwestern Indiana. He said private toll roads have emerged as one of the few options available to lawmakers to build roads at a time when federal and state gas tax revenues are not keeping up with the need for new projects.

The senators’ defense of the project came following a week during which the Indiana Department of Transportation held a number of area meetings to glean public comments about the 75-mile toll bypass, which Daniels calls the Indiana Commerce Connector. A second bypass, called the Illiana Expressway, would be built in Northwest Indiana.

Hearings in Greenfield, Anderson and Franklin drew hundreds of people --- many of whom vehemently opposed the connector project.

Not surprisingly, some feared they would be uprooted from their land. But many said the Daniels administration has yet to build a case, through studies and data, as to why the road should be built.

“Why has this been originated by the government and not the people?” Charles Canary, a Johnson County councilman, asked Tuesday at the Franklin hearing. “The underlying thing is that people don't want this.”

From a story today by Jim Stinson in the Gary Post Tribune:
The Illiana Expressway needs feasibility and environmental studies, but the concept is a good one, regional leaders said.

Leaders from the Northwest Indiana Forum and the Northern Indiana Regional Planning Commission met in Indianapolis on Wednesday night to meet with state legislators at the Downtown Marriott.

While public meetings in Northwest Indiana have brought out hundreds of opponents to the Illiana plan, supporters say plans are still years away and conceptual lines showing a connection between Interstate 94 to Interstate 65 are not indicative of where the road will be. [ILB- see comment below]

Leaders stressed corridor protection, so future growth does not limit possibilities of where the conceived toll road would go.

"I think we should study it," said Porter County Councilman Matt Murphy, R-3rd. "I'm looking out 20 years."

The issue has drawn concern from Porter and LaPorte representatives, although LaPorte Mayor Leigh Morris supports the route study.

At the joint reception held by the Forum and NIRPC, state Sen. Vic Heinold, R-Kouts, said he believes there will be compromise on legislative oversight of the route.

The proposal, Senate Bill 1, is sponsored by state Sen. Thomas Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, and state Sen. Sue Landske, D-Cedar Lake. It would authorize new toll roads for the Northwest Indiana and Indianapolis regions to divert traffic and it would make a proposed southwestern leg of Interstate 69 a freeway, undoing last year's toll-road label.

RE the "conceptual lines", here is the map of the proposed Illiana route announced on the Indiana Dept. of Transportation web site December 12, 2006. What has been the impact of the property values of land in the path of this "conceptual route"? The same goes for the Commerce Connector route.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 25, 2007 12:49 PM
Posted to Indiana Government