Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
The completion of Section 5 of I-69 connecting Bloomington with Martinsville has been delayed.
Sorry, we didn’t mean the part about stopping us. And unfortunately, this is no joke, especially for the people of Monroe County who must deal with these construction inconveniences and delays every hour of every day.
Indeed, the completion date for the transformation of Ind. 37 into I-69 has been pushed back for the fourth time and now is nearly two years later than the original projected completion date of October 2016.
Former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, now the nation’s vice president, ballyhooed his idea for fast-tracking this construction via a public-private partnership as innovative and creative. The partnership allowed the Indiana Finance Authority, an arm of state government, to select a private company to design and build this part of the road, then maintain it for 35 years. In early 2014, Pence and the State Budget Committee approved the selection of a company based in Spain.
The entire scheme doesn’t look so good now, and hasn’t for quite some time. The private development company the state picked to build the 21 miles of interstate highway has had financial problems that included falling behind on payments to subcontractors and causing the work to stop. The state and the developer had a public spat over who was responsible for the work stoppages. Accidents in the construction zone have added to the angst and concerns. And if you’re confident this really will be the final time the project is delayed under the current partnership structure, you’re likely in select company.
Fortunately, the state through the Indiana Finance Authority is trying to take over the construction project. That sounds good on first blush. But such a takeover would raise its own set of questions about future financing, especially of maintaining the highway for the next 35 years.
An editorial in this space in September 2016 reviewed the fact that when the partnership idea surfaced, state leaders said they would make sure things went as smoothly as possible. This can’t be “as smoothly as possible.” Bloomington’s mayor at the time, Mark Kruzan, noted the unusual partnership arrangement would make “Section 5 the guinea pig part of the interstate.” That certainly seems to be true, but it’s time to stop the experiment.
Questions or not, the state needs to take over responsibility of getting Section 5 completed as quickly and efficiently as possible. It’s a matter of safety, and it’s a matter of delivering what was promised to taxpayers.
And then there’s the matter of completing Section 6 of I-69 from Martinsville to Indianapolis. That’s a set of problems for another set of years.