Fed-approved I-69 route still best, say officials

INDIANAPOLIS - The federally approved route for extending Interstate 69 through southern Indiana is the best course if the road is made a tollway, a state evaluation shows.\nThe Indiana Department of Transportation has submitted the evaluation to the Federal Highway Administration, which must approve it for the state to do a more in-depth study on a paid highway's effect on the area and to ultimately make the extension a tollway, INDOT spokesman Gary Abell said Monday.\nResidents can learn more about the study on a Web site, http://www.i69indyevn.org, and at four open houses on Thursday. People will have 30 days to submit comments that the federal agency will review along with the report before a final decision on the study, which is expected this fall.\nAbout $700 million from the pending $3.8 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road would be used to start the I-69 extension from Indianapolis to Evansville. INDOT and Gov. Mitch Daniels also are hoping to develop a partnership under which a private company would help build the highway and then manage it as a tollway.\nConstruction of the 142-mile extension is projected to cost $1.8 billion, and the Daniels administration has targeted groundbreaking for summer 2008. INDOT says under a private-public partnership, construction likely could be completed within 10 years.\n"The purpose of the re-evaluation is to see is our current route is the best choice for I-69 if we build it as a toll road," INDOT Commissioner Tom Sharp said in a news release. "Our analysis indicates that it is."\nThe new analysis would look at the effect tolling would have on the corridors that were studied between 2000 and 2004. Since tolls were not evaluated in that earlier study, INDOT said it needed to confirm that the route chosen in 2004 was still the best alternative.\nThe state law that authorized leasing the toll road in northern Indiana also prohibits the state from making the leg of I-69 from Martinsville to Indianapolis a tollway. The highway also could not go through Perry Township in southern Indianapolis, which is part of the federally approved route.\nAbell said INDOT hopes the General Assembly will reconsider those decisions.\n"If we get approval from the federal highway department, we will do an extensive modeling (for tolling) and go back to the Legislature and provide them with details," Abell said.\nThe open houses on the study will be held on today in Indianapolis, Bloomington, Washington and Oakland City.