Signs of progress abound on Section 5 of the Interstate 69 project.
The stoplight at Vernal Pike has been removed, the bridge deck at Fullerton Pike has been paved and the median barrier wall is growing by the day. But will it be finished by the Oct. 31, 2017, completion date?
“That’s the date we are currently working with,” Gary Vandegriff, project manager with I-69 Development Partners, said last week.
Noncommittal answers such as that, and a general lack of transparency, have raised the ire of local government officials. Two weeks ago, members of the Bloomington/Monroe County Metropolitan Planning Organization railed against the Indiana Department of Transportation, the Indiana Finance Authority and I-69 Development Partners — the private company hired by the state to build and maintain Section 5 — for not providing an updated schedule.
At an October meeting Jim Stark, who is now listed as the finance authority’s deputy commissioner for innovative project delivery, assured the local planning organization that all parties involved with the project were committed to meeting the new substantial completion deadline of October 2017, which is a full year after the original date. Planning organization members say project officials promised to provide an updated schedule two weeks after that meeting. At the January meeting of the planning organization’s policy committee, they still had not received a schedule.
Vandegriff suggested the parties involved with the project have yet to agree on a precise plan.
“The October (20)17 date is what we’re working with for overall completion, but the schedule is still being evaluated,” he said. “Everybody on our team is diligently working on it.”