Letter: What comes next

The last few weeks, people have been complaining about the traffic delays in Dubois County due to the roadwork on SR-62 from the Bretzville Junction to Rural King, as well as downtown Jasper. Well, if the Mid-States Corridor ever comes to be, get used to it. Dubois County will be a construction zone with traffic delays, not just for a week or two but for years and years to come.

Why am I guessing this will last for well over a decade? Mainly because if the Regional Development Authority succeeds with the MSC, it won’t stop there. These billionaire businessmen will see that SR-64 east of Jasper to SR-62 is not wide enough or straight enough for their semis to maneuver and there is no shoulder on that highway. They will certainly want to correct those problems…for their semis. People don’t use front yards so they will see it as useless ground. If your house sits too close to the road…they’ll take that too. HB128, penned by Braun and Messmer, gave them the power to do just that and stay anonymous while they destroy people’s lives to get more gold in their pockets.

Then, they will realize that some of their semis will turn onto Meridian Road to 15th Street and that will need widened also…. more traffic delays and detours that will force more and more drivers onto 231. Guess the MSC won’t really relieve traffic in Jasper for quite a while if at all. 

Mill Street already has an expansion in the works, but how long before they realize that the roads from Mill Street to 231 are too narrow? Let’s take land away from those homeowners, too, so that the road can be reconstructed for their trucks.

The Schnellville Road will certainly need widened to accommodate the increased traffic flow of daily commuters into Jasper. Condemnation, road construction, detours, and delays will be a must for that road. This will have drivers adding many miles to their daily commutes to avoid this construction zone since the MSC is going to be a very limited access road.

231 will have exits north of Jasper and south of Huntingburg. INDOT has said they will bring 231 up to a “satisfactory” condition before ceding it over to the cities and county. What does that mean? It needs a complete overhaul after the obvious neglect of the last few years. Are they simply going to chip and seal it as they are doing in Martin County or a patch job here and there? Either way, it calls for more and more traffic delays as they attempt to make it “satisfactory”. 

When they realize that people are still utilizing 231 to get to the places they need to go and traffic flow has not improved, there will be calls for the cities and county to widen 231, add passing lanes, improve intersections. You know, all the improvements that Gov. Holcolm had allocated money for but was never considered by the Lochmueller Group or INDOT.  This will cause more construction and traffic delays when the RDA demands the cities and county do these improvements. 

Huntingburg is looking to get maybe three exits into town. If one is north of the city, it will again be going onto a county road. They will see it as a road going through more useless farmland that our grandchildren will certainly not need in the future for growing food so it will be condemned and the road again widened causing detours and delays.

East of Huntingburg, they will realize that if a train gets stalled on the tracks that traffic could easily back up all the way to the exit of the corridor. Well, if only there was a train overpass, it would solve that problem. There is one in Huntingburg, very inconveniently built on the west side of town. To get semis to that overpass from the east, residential streets would need to demolished and redone. People would again lose their homes to widen streets and intersections but hey it’s all about their trucks and making them money.

This won’t be all…think of all the water lines, power lines, telephone lines, and fiber optic lines that will need to be moved. This not only will cause construction sites the entire length of our county but it will probably cause disruption of these services. Dubois Strong is predicting great developments around the exits to the MSC. Convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and hotels….you know, businesses that will create all those high paying minimum wage jobs they think people are going to flock to Dubois County for. While all this construction is going on, our county tourism, will plummet. Who wants to vacation in a construction zone. Our small businesses will suffer as people will shop in neighboring counties to avoid the delays, dust and inconvenience of all this construction.

Please drive around our beautiful county. See the rolling hills, incredible fields of corn and soybeans, the lovely homes that the owners take great pride in, and the lush green forests. It is all on the verge of being bulldozed over. Our way of peaceful country living where we look out for our neighbors and cherish the tranquility will be gone forever. Replaced for years and years with the ugliness of bulldozers, cranes, trucks, dust, noise, and devastating destruction. Then after all that, we will be left with another piece of pavement that people will throw their trash on as the speed through our county, not spending a penny in any of our beautiful towns because they will never see them and what they have to offer.

If you want to live in a construction zone for years, please move to one. I, personally, don’t want to live the rest of my life looking at the destruction of our beautiful county. IF this road is allowed to be built, get used to a life of dust, dirt, noise, and delays. It will never end once they see that their land grab works while we pay the price with never ending taxation. And remember that next time, it may be your land and home that they want to pave over. 

This county is made up of much more than the few mega-industries that will benefit from the MSC. We are a family of industry, farmers, and small business owners who have always worked together so we could ALL thrive and still live in one of the most beautiful and historic areas of Indiana. The MSC will not benefit the majority of our citizens but only an elite few. Yet, we the citizens will be the ones paying the price for it, not only monetarily, but with the loss the wonderful way of life that we now enjoy. Join together with the thousands of voices in Dubois and Martin counties. Attend the Property Rights Alliance bi-weekly meetings, attend one of the upcoming town halls and say NO…..we don’t want the Mid-States Corridor!

Cathy Wagner
Celestine