Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Streetsblog.net

Indiana Just Building Highways for Highway Building’s Sake

10:57 AM EDT on October 24, 2013

There's a fixed mindset in many corners of the country, perhaps especially in the Midwest, which holds that highway building is an unquestioned economic good.

false

Aaron Renn at the Urbanophile captures it perfectly in this quote borrowed from a friend: "Highways and bridges and casinos are their answer to every problem: Tax base eroding? Build a casino. Urban congestion? Build a highway. Can’t get to casinos? Build a bridge."

That definitely seems to be the strategy elected leaders are pursuing in Indiana, Renn says. After three decades of political pressure from southwest Indiana, the state has begun constructing I-69 between Evansville and Indianapolis, a project that will likely cost at least a billion or two dollars to complete. And already, highway boosters are starting to agitate for their next big project: I-67.

Renn says this type of highway building has become completely divorced from transportation needs -- it's just a "snake oil solution" the state can sell to struggling communities:

One might perhaps justify I-69 on the simple matter of fairness. Look at a map and see freeway spokes radiating from Indianapolis to the rest of the state, with the southwest link missing. But it certainly wasn’t justified economically. The existing interstate rolling through Southern Indiana, I-64, is the least traveled in the state despite linking St. Louis and Louisville, and has not spawned much in the way of economic development. There’s little prospect for I-69 doing much better, at least south of Bloomington. If you wanted to build it to try to save the Crane Naval Warfare Center from closure then fine, but at least say that’s why you’re building it.

But I-67?

What this actually shows is that for a lot of people, building highways is a end itself.

There will never be a day when people aren’t pushing some sort of massive boondoggle. It may well be that the state hasn’t agreed to build this road. But it’s also early. Few of Indiana’s major projects, whether that be the Illiana Expressway, I-69, or the Ohio River Bridges, were cooked up by the engineers in INDOT’s planning department. Instead, they were local priorities that over time became “high priority” projects for the state.

Without much else to offer economic hope to fading rural areas, small towns, and old small industrial cities, highway construction is easy snake oil solution. No amount of highway construction will ever satiate this never-ending demand for yet more mega-roads.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Greater Greater Washington reports that DC may start offering reimbursement to District employees who commute by bike. Mobilizing the Region writes that New York state just slashed funding for biking and walking, soon after enacting a complete streets law. And Systemic Failure remarks on a court case that could have implications for rails-to-trails projects nationwide.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Why We Care About Some Transportation Tragedies More Than Others

Why do we respond to major transportation disasters with so much urgency — and why don't we count our collective car crash epidemic among them?

March 28, 2024

The Toll of History: MTA Board Approves $15 Congestion Pricing Fee

New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing tolls are one historic step closer to reality after Wednesday's 11-1 MTA board vote. Next step: all those pesky lawsuits.

March 28, 2024

Take Thursday’s Headlines Home, Country Roads

Heat Map reports on why rural Americans are resisting electric vehicles, and why it might not matter much for the climate.

March 28, 2024

Guest Commentary: Traffic Engineers Must Put Safety Over Driver Throughput

No other field would tolerate this level of death and destruction. The tragedy of West Portal is more evidence that the traffic engineering profession is fundamentally broken.

March 27, 2024
See all posts