Letter: Mid-States Corridor misinformation

I whole heartily agree with the letters written by Mark Nowotarski and Jim Arvin on the Mid-State Corridor. The pamphlet that they sent out has 6 talking points and one of them contradicts 3 of the other ones. It makes me wonder how, if they are going to Decrease Traffic Congestion off of 231 and Downtown Jasper, how are they going to Enhance Tourism, Grow Jobs and have Economic Growth. To decrease traffic congestion, they propose putting a road in place to take traffic around Jasper and Huntingburg. If they are taking the traffic around these 2 cities, where is the Enhanced Tourism, Job and Economic Growth supposed to come from. Traffic would simply go around and not stop in. That is like saying you are going to put less water into a bucket and fill it up. If you will recall, when I-69 was in the development stage, one of the oppositions to it coming in close to Jasper and Huntingburg was that people driving on it would just pass by these 2 cities, and no one would stop in. Now, with the Mid-States Corridor, that is exactly what will happen.

I make a few trips to Indianapolis, and I use I-69. Anyone who travels it knows that there are numerous places along the route that has been patched in the relatively short time since it was constructed. I am afraid we would get another hastily constructed road that would need constant repair, when we can’t even afford to take care of the roads we already. On top of all that, according to every report I have read, on an average trip to Indy, this road would only save about 15 to 20 minutes of drive time.

This is a project that will cost billions of dollars and not really accomplish anything except take land from a lot of people for no real benefit. I hope that the people who have the land they want to take refuse to sell because, as Jim Arvin has said numerous times that if 50% of the people refuse to sell, it would put a stop to this useless highway. If this was put to a vote on a public ballot, I know for sure it would be voted down. I am sure that the people pushing this know it and that is why they don’t want that to happen. Why else do you suppose that when it was first proposed for a vote, there was only a choice of routes and they had no provision to vote against it. The few that are behind this are determined to ram this road down our throats even though the majority of the general public doesn’t want it.

Vincent Schroering
Celestine