Let's Talk About Roads - by Cathy Burton

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Let's Talk About Roads
by Cathy Burton

Let’s talk about roads.

Roads should be a means to travel from one destination to another. They should be functional and in good repair. If we’re lucky, they take us through beautiful countryside and past interesting architecture. They are important tools in a creating and maintaining a stable economy as well as our ability to access good communities where we can choose to raise our families.

Roads should not be trophies. Roads should not divide neighborhoods. Roads should not be an affront to the environment.

But it appears that the State of Indiana may be headed down the wrong road when it comes to plans for moving traffic through our state.

Current discussions about potential routes for extending I-69 are very disturbing for residents of some Marion County neighborhoods in Perry and Decatur townships because the expansions will in fact divide neighborhoods. Other options will unnecessarily consume valuable land resources and have serious impacts on air and water quality. All new route construction calls for the sacrifice of increasingly scarce farm ground and a disappearing mature tree canopy. Not to mention diverting critical federal and state road money from repairing and maintaining our existing system of roads.

All for the sake of saving 15 minutes of drive time.

Some proponents of new construction point to the potential for “new economic development.” I suppose we all need more super service stations plopped down in the middle of a former cornfield. Has anyone ever asked what will happen to those businesses along the current highways which depend on motorists to remain vital? Will these “new terrain” proposals be draining the customer base from those businesses?

Has anybody really thought about how many improvements to existing interstates and state highways will be left undone in order to build another road we don’t need and won’t be able to maintain? Wouldn’t it make more sense to make sure that we take care of what we already have?

And is anybody even asking the neighborhoods in Marion County if they want to be sidelined on a superhighway? (Did we not learn our lesson with I-65?) INDOT certainly did not schedule any meetings in Marion County in this most recent round of meetings to find out how people felt, even though new options have been added that puts these neighborhoods directly in the path of so called progress. And the City is remaining disturbingly quiet on the subject. Why is that?

Taking prudent and well thought out steps to ensure superior transportation access to our major cities must include a meaningful evaluation of the impacts on the neighborhoods which are supposed to benefit from that access. How can such an evaluation be done if the state does not choose to listen to the constituency it is supposed to serve? What good does it do to supposedly promote economic development in new arenas when it means compromising and eroding already established areas?

Improving travel to southern Indiana by using the routes already established by I-70 and Highway 41 makes environmental and economic sense. INDOT needs to wake up and smell the gas fumes before we needlessly spend billions of dollars which will destroy thousands of acres of farm ground, wooded and watered areas and neighborhoods. And the City needs to wake up and take a stand with its neighborhoods before they are run over in the rush to let people speed through the state.

And folks, if you think this issue doesn't affect you because the road isn't going to run through your neighborhood, then you better think again - because at the very least, it will surely run through your tax dollars.

Cathy Burton