For years, this was Brian Bailey’s drive to work: down Ind. 37 from Bloomington to Avoca, cut west on Ind. 54, then onto Ind. 58 and from there, it was pretty much a straight shot to the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane.
Going that way, it’s 37 miles from his driveway on Bloomington’s south side to his corporate communications office in Building 1 at Crane. It would take him 40 minutes Monday through Friday to get to work behind the wheel of his Chevrolet Cruze, give or take a minute.
But his route, and life, changed with Wednesday afternoon’s opening of a 27-mile stretch of 70-mph interstate highway between Bloomington and Crane.
“I will be able to jump on I-69 within five minutes of my house,” he said in anticipation on Tuesday. “I’m guessing it will take 10 minutes or so off my drive. And it will be a lot safer in the long run.”
Bailey took that new route to work Thursday morning, one he called safer and less time consuming. The trip was six miles shorter — down to 31 miles — and he cut 10 minutes off his travel time as predicted.
This stretch of I-69, called Section 4, cost close to half a billion dollars to build and was under construction for more than three years.
Bailey said reducing traffic on Ind. 45 between Bloomington and the gate at Naval Support Activity Crane, a route many Crane workers will continue to use to commute to their jobs at the base, may be the best benefit of I-69. On a recent drive home, leaving about 4 p.m., he counted more than 400 vehicles headed the opposite direction, a steady line, until he got to the intersection with Ind. 54. From that point to Ind. 37, just 40 vehicles passed.
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