Free Republic

or years, Interstate 69 being built through Johnson County was a distant idea. On Tuesday, the state awarded more than $1 billion in construction contracts for the last leg of I-69 construction, marking the start of the final two phases of the project between Martinsville and Indianapolis. Now, the entire 27-mile corridor from State Road 39 in Martinsville to Interstate 465 in Indianapolis is under contract, according to the Indiana Department of Transportation. INDOT awarded a $345 million contract for I-69, from Morgan Street in Morgan County to Fairview Road in Johnson County, to Reith-Riley Construction Co. of Goshen, and...

(CBS) — A Chicago man is suing the state of Indiana and its road building contractors blaming them for a fiery accident on the Cline Avenue Bridge that killed his wife 14 months ago. It was March of last year when Iftikhar Hussain and his wife were driving from Chicago to West Lafayette, Indiana. Hussain’s attorney Timothy Schafer says the couple took the Indiana Toll Road and then the Cline Avenue exit, following the GPS in their Nissan Sentra. Schafer says even though the road was closed because the bridge ahead was demolished, the barricades had been removed and the...

Years ago, the Tokarski family gathered with friends around a kitchen table in an old Indiana farmhouse. They were discussing the looming construction of Interstate 69 and how they could possibly stop it. The group suspected a project of such magnitude, an interstate route stretching across the southern half of Indiana, would cause severe environmental 
damage. “We really had the project almost at a standstill until Mitch Daniels came into office,” said Thomas Tokarski, now the president of Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads. “We still have huge amounts of support from the people in Indiana.” Since that farmhouse meeting, Tokarski...

Even with work on the Interstate 69 extension proceeding in earnest downstate, environmental and citizens groups are suing to stop construction of the 142-mile link between Evansville and Indianapolis. The complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court by Hoosier Environmental Council and Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads seeks to overturn a permit the Army Corps of Engineers issued for the $3 billion project. The groups say the permit authorized the Indiana Department of Transportation “to destroy valuable natural resources” by rerouting streams and filling wetlands in the path of the new highway in Daviess and Greene counties. They contend...