Is Lack Of Funding To Complete I-69 A Good Thing?

Last weekend, the Star reported that Major Moves funding will run about before the final legal of the I-69 extension to Evansville can be undertaken from Indianapolis to Bloomington. A Star editorial today agrees with Indianapolis southsiders who think that's a good thing. The highway is projected to be completed from Evansville to Bloomington by the end of 2014, but there is no foreseeable funding for the $1 billion the final leg of the highway will cost to build. Because state highway planners wanted to reroute the current path of Indiana 37, which is already 4-laned, hundreds of acres of additional land would be required that would have displaced dozens of homes and businesses and at least two churches. Perry Township on the City's southside was alone expected to lose $330 million in taxable property that would be required to construct a new interchange planned for the rerouting of the highway. My prediction is that a proposal will be put forward to toll the Evansville to Bloomington leg of the highway to pay for the final leg of I-69 to Indianapolis. At any rate, perhaps INDOT can finally finish the half-completed bypass around Terre Haute connecting I-70 to U.S. 41 that has deliberately been stalled by the Daniels administration for the past 8 years now that the alternative route from Indianapolis to Evansville has been successfully defeated.