| To: Tim Miller Project Manager Section 6, I-69 Indiana 3-C 7550 South Meridian St Suite B Indianapolis, IN 46217 sent e-mail section6@i69indyevn.org Open letter/ official EIS comments to Tim Miller, HNTB, Project Manager for Indiana Evansville to Indianapolis I-69, 3C, Section 6. Tim Miller, I was pleased to meet with you last night at the October 11, 2002 (correction 2004) public meeting regarding section 6 of the "Evansville to Indianapolis" I-69, 3C Tier 2 DEIS. Make no mistake, I believe I-69 is a boondoggle mistake and that the study should end immediately. I made the point in my two minute public presentation that HNTB complete omission of the word "Toll" in your presentation at this meeting was unacceptable. Since the Governor makes all choices regarding highways by his appointment of the INDOT commissioner, and the Governor has said that only by privatization/ tolling, can this be built in the time frame he is now supporting, it is irresponsible and a waste of taxpayer money for your company to continue forward with your head in the sand regarding changes that would be necessary with toll infrastructure and privatized ownership. I ask that you forward documents that I hand delivered to you to the EIS for I-69. I presented to you three documents that you and at least two other HNTB staff had ever seen before. (added 10/29/05: See FHWA response to this claim.) I request that those documents be included in the Tier 2 DEIS along with this comment that I would like to have recognized as official comment to the EIS for I-69. You are currently in possession of a reprint of the Typical section I for the Raised Urban Freeway approved in the Record of Decision for I-69, Indiana 3C. You are in possession of a reprint of a presentation of the table "Indiana Department of Transportation FEIS Appendix E. , ALTERNATIVE 3-C, I-69 Evansville-To- Indianapolis Typical Cross Sections" Including reduced size cross sections for all of I-69 from I-64 to I-465 and links to the official INDOT presentation of these federally approved documents of the FEIS. And you folded the 13 x 19" photograph of a raised intestate documenting the many potential community advantages. Please forward all of the above to the Tier 2 EIS. I must frankly say that I was shocked and amazed that no one in your consulting firm, could identify the I-69, 3C Tier 1 EIS documents and each admitted never having seen it before. Your presentation to the public claimed your company is not yet in the design phase and that you are only presenting conceptual plans for public comment. HNTB last night told the public that they could "mix and match" from the three plans that you presented, but nowhere was the approved plan from the Tier 1 FEIS offered as an option! That is unacceptable. It is official and your plans are conceptual. The official must surely be a concept too, since a decade of planning and $12 million taxpayer dollars went into these federally approved plans. Again, it is "approved" and your plans are "conceptual". The Record of Decision promised Martinsville an eight lane raised urban freeway and presented two surface frontage roads on each side. I point out for the record here several....several people from the Martinsville area requested "frontage roads" and multiple crossing points including those for bicycles and pedestrians. You will remember that you asked me if I believed that a raised intestate would be better and I presented you a large picture of I-64 in Louisville raise with pedestrians enjoying dozens if not a hundred acres of public green space under and to each side of the Interstate. I believe this picture speaks more than a thousand words. This would obviously be preferable for the city of Martinsville that would be further divided by I-69. Tolling of this roadway would only increase the desirability of this infrastructure as tolling will increase the pressure on alternative routes to the Toll road and cause traffic backups at toll booths as well as pressure to create fewer exits because of the need for toll booths. I would also like to remind you here officially of my charge that what was approve by the Record of Decision is the result of $12 million dollars of Indiana taxpayer funded study. The cross sections there survived the DEIS process and the FEIS process before being Federally approved. What you presented in your meeting was your "conceptual" drawings and told the public that those where their choices, yet your concepts must replace Federally approved official drawings in the Tier 1 record of decision. I claimed that the ROD approved cross sections should have been presented to the public. Your company should have at least admitted that these plans have been approved, but where being removed from the realm by your company from consideration. You will remember, I asked you if he had any idea why this was a raised interstate in the FEIS. You responded 'No'. I said, let me tell you why and you can tell me if you disagree: Look at this table "Road Width" and "Existing Road Width":
You will see that in section 5 past Bloomington and section 6 past Martinsville I-69 was seen needing more lanes and the narrowest width (only 290 feet or 45 feet per side more than existing SR37) . You did not seem to disagree with the COUNT US! analysis that I presented. You shared with me the fact that HNTB is designing from new traffic count numbers being provided by Bernardin, Lochmueller and Associates, the Evansville chief consulting firm for the I-69 project. I must conclude that these traffic counts are apparently far smaller than those used to justify I-69 in the purpose and need section of the DEIS and FEIS of the Tier 1. The need for two fewer traffic lanes in Martinsville on I-69 even with no frontage roads and we can not help but think "Bait and Switch". Perhaps BLA has factored in the Toll Road proposal. If I-69 is going to be a Toll road then it will not function with the volume of traffic that had been expected. This is exactly the reason for reopening all of the Tier 1 performance studies with the Toll component. Every performance statistic in the Tier 1 will be changed by the tolling proposal. HNTB claim presented publicly at this meeting of not being involved in design work at this phase is greatly inaccurate and untrue. Your conceptual cross sections and representations of public choice is a massive change in what has gone through a great deal of expensive study and at least three major hurdles of the process, the DEIS, FEIS and ROD of Tier 1. I don't deny your ability to make changes, but the claims and methods that you are using are outside the legal process, I charge. I realize that some of my comments above are broader than the scope of your section 6, this is the reason that I have requested that these comments become part of the FEIS and the EIS Tier 2 for the entire I-69, 3C project as well as remain part of your study for the section 6. Please send your forwarding actions including an inventory and destination of documents that you have sent on to the study. If there is any portion of this document that you can not access, please go to http://www.i69tour.org/HNTBc01.html for a pdf version. For your convenience, I include html links to the documents that I presented to you last night: The Typical Section I "Raised Urban Freeway": http://www.assmotax.org/I69/Section%20I_S.jpg The COUNT US! presentation of the FEIS Appendix E "Typical Cross Sections" with links to the original INDOT documents: http://www.i69tour.org/3cmonroe.html And the photograph of I-64 with COUNT US! analysis relevant to the Section 5 and Section 6. http://www.i69tour.org/sec5i64raised.html Please note this photograph on the web includes text analysis of why the raised interstate "is better" than what you have replaced it with in your conceptual proposals. I ask include that text here too: At the public information meeting for section 6, October 11, 2005, it was learned that none of the HNTB consultants had never even seen the" typical section I" raise urban freeway approved by the Tier 1 record of decision for the area that they are studying. HNTB claimed publicly to not be involved in "design" yet, but no option presented to the public included the eight lanes, the "raised section" or either of the two frontage roads approved by federal highway in the Record of Decision of INDOT's Tier 1 FEIS Environmental Impact Study. We believe major design elements have been made on day one of Tier 2! Should we claim "bait and switch"? We offer this view of I-64 in Louisville to demonstrate why we do not find a raised interstate more frightening than the New flat I-69 proposal presented by Section 5 Consultants  If I-69 were to be built in Bloomington and Martinsville many would prefer this construction. The communities would be less negatively impacted and could develop more naturally. See how pedestrian activity could flourish. The Tier 1 Record of Decision for I-69, 3C calls for a raised urban interstate with "earth retaining walls". If I-69 is to be planned at all, the pillar type construction as above should be requested by the Bloomington and Martinsville Communities. This proposal is a less radical change to the Tier 1 Record of Decision approved cross-section than the one the Consultants of section 5, Michael Baker Jr., Inc. and section 6 consultants, HNTB are working on currently. The Michael Baker Jr. Inc. and HNTB plans are cheaper, but not better. We do not advocate for I-69 period, but if the planning is going to move forward, then plan intelligently. Thank you, John Smith' COUNT US! address phone |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Since this page was posted,
COUNT US! has added What
would I-69 look like in Martinsville? That page includes the only cross section drawings that HNTB is allowing for consideration in Tier 2, I-69 study. Cheaper, but certainly not better! |
© COUNT US! 2002 -'03,'04 |
