Common-sense I-69 route

Steven Higgs' Dec. 8 letter rightly urged our governor-elect to reverse the previous administration's commitment to plow ahead with a destructive and deficit-worsening new terrain I-69 highway.\nGov. Mitch Daniels has been described as an advocate of fact-based decision-making. One salient fact which has not been widely publicized is one which Gov. Daniels, as a former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, should well understand and appreciate. It is that the proposed new-terrain highway would result in a net cost rather than a net benefit. Indeed, if the OMB's recommended discount rate of 7% is used in calculating Net Present Value -- rather than the 4 percent figure which was used by Indiana Department of Transportation's consultant -- the actual benefit-cost ratio becomes a significant negative number (-.66). Thus, there would be only 66 cents of benefits for each dollar of cost. \nDuring the campaign, Daniels expressed concern that the I-69 highway has been long in the planning stages. Nevertheless, he should carefully consider this and other major failings in the analysis. There is still plenty of time to carefully scrutinize the likely effects of the decision and to select the common sense route using the existing I-70/US 41 corridor. \nClarke Kahlo\nPresident, Hoosier Environmental Council