Before Mitch Daniels became Indiana governor in January 2005, the Indiana Department of Transportation talked of hopefully beginning construction on Interstate 69 between Evansville and Indianapolis in the year 2017. That was considered optimistic, if not unrealistic.
Indeed, before Daniels, Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon had done a tremendous job of moving I-69 from an idea debated for decades to a plan for how to route the highway through Bloomington and on to Indianapolis.
O'Bannon, from Corydon, understood the need for a north/south interstate highway through Southwestern Indiana, and seemed to do all he could to bring it right up to the edge of construction.
But he had no realistic plan for how to finance that construction, and then, sadly, late in his second term, he died unexpectedly. O'Bannon's lieutenant governor, Joe Kernan, carried on.
But the hope for seeing Interstate 69 constructed during any of our lifetimes — if ever — fell to Daniels, who as a candidate said a new financing approach would be needed to actually see the highway built.
The rest is recent history, of which the public is familiar: the Daniels' administration created Major Moves, which brought in $3.8 billion for the lease of a northern Indiana toll road; they dedicated $700 million for the first part of I-69; and construction now speeds toward Crane.
Daniels expects the section from Evansville to Crane to be finished by the time he leaves office, and the Crane to Bloomington section to be well on its way to completion. That would be an incredible accomplishment.
However, for the rest of us in Southern Indiana who argued for more than four decades about the need for this highway, the fight may not be over.
Eric Bradner of the Courier & Press Capital Bureau reported Thursday that the big question now may be how Indiana lawmakers and the state's next governor — 2012 is Daniels' last year — intend to finish the section of the highway between Bloomington and Indianapolis.
That would take a plan and a vision, but as yet, nothing has materialized.
"There's nothing in the frying pan," said Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, chairman of the House transportation committee, in Bradner's report.
Senate transportation chairman Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, and a friend to the I-69 project, said "I don't know what'll happen in two years, when we've got a new governor. I think, with Mitch, he's probably got something up his sleeve to make it happen."
Let's hope so. Of course, Daniels may soon have the power to create public/private road projects as well as toll roads, if proposed legislation becomes law, and that could be a factor on the northern segment of Interstate 69.
But in the meantime, according to Bradner, Wyss and Soliday say that traditional sources of highway funds have begun to dry up thanks to rising gasoline prices that are causing motorists to drive hybrid cars and to drive fewer miles. And it is traditional sources, such as gas taxes, that are being eyed for finishing I-69.
Bradner reported that Indiana lawmakers are planning a two-year study committee that will try to forecast how much Indiana will lose in traditional funds and how Indiana might make up for some of that lost revenue.
Unless Daniels quickly pulls another rabbit out of his hat, I-69 backers should be prepared for another long haul.