INDIANAPOLIS - While some lawmakers are pushing for a change to the selected Interstate 69 corridor that would move the northern end of the route west, how far west and what a final product would look like is unclear.
Most of the proponents just want the shift out of Perry Township. The township on the South side of Indianapolis is densely populated with both businesses and homes tucked in tightly along Indiana 37.
But two western options for the I-69 route were studied and rejected in the draft and final environmental studies. One would have split from Indiana 37 just south of Martinsville and run more or less directly north over Indiana 39 before connecting with Interstate 70 far west of Indianapolis. Maps for the final environmental study show some conflicts with a nature area, Bradford Woods, that this route disturbed.
Another studied option would have I-69 split from Indiana 37 in northeastern Morgan County and run into Indianapolis along Mann Road. This option was also one that bisects a portion of the family farm owned by U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar. The Indiana Department of Transportation eliminated this route because it had "greater wetlands, flood plain and farmland impacts" than other routes.
Transportation Department spokes-man Gary Abell said other western alternatives between those two already studied routes run into environmental problems caused by crossing the White River.
Abell said that if the directive came to reroute the end of I-69, INDOT must reopen the entire segment six for a new environmental study. Segment six runs from just south of Martinsville into Indianapolis. And, he said, the study would have to analyze all viable options, not just one legislators, or anyone for that matter, created.
"We would have to go back to square one," Abell said, adding that the data may point in the same direction again. "It could come back that Indiana 37 is the best alternative."
He said data already collected for the draft and final environmental studies on traffic flow and environmental data, such as wildlife populations, must be redone from scratch. He said INDOT estimates, and federal officials have agreed, that a review of segment six would be "an optimum" of a three year delay.
He said a western route must come into I-465 via an existing interchange, most likely by merging with I-70, because federal rules prohibit interchanges in urban areas of interstates from being closely spaced together.
He said that while INDOT has been asking federal agencies what it would take to redo segment six, they've not put any ideas on a map or outlined any "viable options."
He said federal officials have advised INDOT that they need not stop with environmental studies ongoing in the other five I-69 segments for now. Abell said the initial consensus is that a change to segment six would not invalidate the federal "record of decision" granted in March 2004 on the entire route but that INDOT must go back and redo some of its calculations based on the changes.
The Tier II environmental impact study for segment one, which runs from I-64 north along Indiana 57 roughly to Oakland City, could be completed as early as this fall, Abell said.