INDIANAPOLIS —The contracts are signed, and now that the weather is improving, construction is set to begin on 65 miles of new Interstate 69 terrain.
The longer-term question, though, is just how Indiana's legislators, and, perhaps, the state's next governor, intend to finish the job started with the Major Moves deal in 2006.
The plan for that as-of-yet unplanned portion of the highway, from Bloomington to Indianapolis, is to pay for it using traditional infrastructure funding sources such as gasoline taxes.
But the chairmen of Indiana's House and Senate transportation committees say they fear that gas tax revenues will dry up as motorists switch to hybrid vehicles and drive less as gas prices near $4 a gallon.
Therefore, state lawmakers plan a two-year study committee that is intended to identify how much Indiana stands to lose over time, and what the state might be able to do to make up for some of those lost revenues.
As for finding new dollars to set aside for the Bloomington-to-Indianapolis portion of I-69 between then and now?
"There's nothing in the frying pan," said Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, the House transportation chairman.
The 142-mile Indianapolis-to-Evansville extension is being built in six sections.
The first three, which start on the east side of Evansville and end near the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center, are already under construction.
The bill for building those sections is being paid out of the $700 million that Indiana lawmakers set aside when they signed the $3.8 billion, 75-year lease of a northern Indiana toll road to a Spanish-Australian consortium in 2006.
The three sections are divided into 16 individual contracts that were placed up for bid by the state. Of those, 15 have already been signed, at a total price of $574 million.
"Most contracts are beginning to get into full swing as the weather allows," said Cher Elliott, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Transportation.
The fourth, which pushes the highway close to Bloomington, is in the final planning stages.
Goodwin said the state expects to submit the final environmental impact statement — the last step in the planning process — to the Federal Highway Administration this summer for approval.
That would mean construction could begin immediately. State officials have pegged the timeline for its completion around the end of 2012.
And because costs for the first three sections have come in lower than expected as the recession has driven construction contractors to place lower bids in hopes of picking up extra work, what's left of the $700 million already set aside would be added to planned state funds to pay for the fourth section.
But the fifth and sixth sections, which closely follow Indiana 37 from the Bloomington area through Martinsville to Indianapolis, are not yet planned, and construction there remains years away.
That raises the question: What if the chairmen are correct and transportation dollars do dry up before the highway extension is finished?
Another question looms, as well. Daniels has been more committed to I-69's extension than any of his predecessors. What if his successor is less interested in the project?
"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," said Sen. Tom Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, the Senate's transportation chairman.
Right now, the plan is to build the highway using the traditional sources that Wyss and Soliday have said will begin to dry up.
There are no plans to increase gas taxes — currently 18 cents a gallon in Indiana and federally — in order to boost road-building revenue.
U.S. Rep. John Mica, the Florida Republican who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, visited Indianapolis in February. He said there is no congressional appetite for such a tax hike.
Still, lawmakers such as U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, the Republican who represents Indiana's 8th District, have said they are committed to the project.
Bucshon is on the transportation committee in part because of the I-69 extension, said U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita, another freshman Indiana Republican who was part of the steering group that doled out committee assignments.
Beyond working dollars for the extension's final two segments into state or federal transportation plans, another option could be tying the highway to revenues from another public-private partnership.
Four years ago, Daniels proposed the "Indiana Commerce Connector" — a toll road that would swoop from the northeast side to the southwest side of Indianapolis, allowing truck traffic to bypass the city's congestion.
Those proceeds would have given I-69 a boost, but the project proved unpopular and was ultimately spiked.
Steve Schaefer, the head of Hoosier Voices for I-69 and the vice president of public policy for the Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana, said money saved as a result of low construction prices on sections one through four, in addition to traditional funding and the possibility of future dollars from another public-private partnership, should be enough to get the extension done.
Wyss said he is convinced that the Indiana Commerce Connector will eventually be constructed as a public-private partnership. Other such projects, he said, could include allowing a company to build tolled truck lanes to the highways that already exist. Those proceeds, he said, could help fund I-69.
Further down the road for I-69, which is billed as a Canada-to-Mexico "Superhighway" and was designated by Congress as a "corridor of the future," is a bridge that connects Evansville to Henderson, Ky.
That, Schaefer said, could be a prime spot for a public-private partnership in which a private company is hired to build the bridge and collect tolls to pay for it. In addition to federal funding, he said, such a deal is "something that should be explored."