Governor announces I-69 will not become a toll road

I-69 will not be made into a toll road, but a new road proposed by Gov. Mitch Daniels could be.\nThe governor's office announced plans for the Indiana Commerce Connector Thursday, an outerbelt tollway linking six interstates through Morgan, Johnson, Shelby, Hancock and Madison counties.\n"We have the chance to create six tremendous new job zones without a penny of borrowing or a tax increase," Daniels said in a statement. "We've talked to leaders in communities across these counties, and they are enthusiastic, so I want to move quickly to measure the transportation marketplace interest in building this road with private funds while paying the state money we can use to help complete I-69 and other critical investments in our future."\nSimilar to plans announced last year for I-69, the Indiana Commerce Connector will be built and operated through a private-public partnership.\nThe exact route for the connector has not been determined, but it is expected to be about 75 miles long. The state will own the road, but the company building the road would determine where construction would begin and when to open certain segments of the road.\nThe Indiana Department of Transportation is currently investigating how much the project will cost, and in the next legislative year Daniels will ask the general assembly to transfer the tolling authority from the proposed I-69 plan to the connector. \nI-69 will now not have any tolls, according to a press release.\nTom Tokarski, president of the local anti-I-69 group, Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads, was critical of Daniels' latest plan.\n"They haven't even picked a route or done a study to know if it's feasible," he said. "They just keep making the same mistakes over and over again."\nCARR was one of several groups that sued the state last month in an attempt to block construction of I-69.\nThe proposed $2 billion road would directly connect Indianapolis to Ellettsville. Part of what is currently Route 37 would become part of I-69. The state plans to break ground on the project in 2008.\nTokarski believes the extension of I-69 to Ellettsville would negatively impact the environment of southern Indiana and divide many rural communities. He also said the real reason I-69 is not a toll road is because the state could not find a company to invest in what he calls an "economically risky" venture.\n"The tollway made a bad project even worse," he said. "It makes no economic sense. They couldn't even get a corporation to buy into it."\nThe governor and INDOT claim the highway will rejuvenate the Hoosier economy and bring more large companies to the state, generating job growth.\n"The first thing those companies ask us is if there's an interstate nearby," INDOT spokesman Gary Abell said in an October interview. "This will be a key piece in getting economic conditions moving forward in Indiana"