I feel a little sorry for Senator Waltz. He sent a reasonably simple two or three page bill over to the House having to do with allowing state property and highway rights of way to be used to grow vegetation that can be used for fuels or energy products.
Now the House is sending SB 374 back to him on a 54-45 vote as a 122 page Goliath with all kinds of fun stuff inside, including new provisions on how the Toll Road money can be spent and a study commission on the feasibility of a passenger rail system from Chicago to Evansville. That’s right, I said Evansville. I didn’t mean Cincinnati. Western Indiana is the wave of the future.
And, the bill allows counties to create a regional transportation district to plan, design, acquire, construct, enlarge, improve, renovate, maintain, equip, finance, operate, and support public transportation systems.
There is more in there as well. I won’t pretend I’ve read the entire 122 pages.
A train from Chicago to Evansville would be awesome. Even more so if it stops in Indy on the way. It is sooo hard to get to E’ville. E’ville is more accessible from Louisville, St. Louis and Nashville than from Indy. Almost no one I meet in Indy has even been there. Some have a cousin who was there once, though. It’s a nice town. You’d be surprised.
You’re right about accessibility. I’ve never been there. Just because it’s never been on the route between me and wherever I’ve gone.
It seems to me I have spent as much time the last 40 years driving through Terre Haute as I have visiting Indianapolis! I navigate the TH bottleneck still a couple times a year,each way.. Route 41/63 over all has been greatly improved,especially in recent years ,but the trip through the city of TH has gotten slower and more consternating.
TH’s shopping seems to be all along route 41,and shopping centers and traffic signals and left turn lanes keep increasing,and there’s habitually a line of semis existing and entering I-70..The other alternative from SE US to Chicago is to pass through both Louisville and Indianapolis or bend way west into Illinois and then come back east towards Chicago.
So if the future of Indiana is western Indiana,transportation, both highway and rail, should be improved along the western side of the state.Terre Haute needs a bypass!I have been driving route Indiana route 41 since before Interstate days.It’s too direct a route to avoid.
Indiana is appropriately named ‘the crossroads of America’ You can’t get anywhere without going there.
Evansville is another Indiana City I have been through countless times but never wanted to go there as a destination.Then there’s route 41 to contuinue the trip where I want to go.
I’ve been to Evansville on Political trips three times in the ast couple years– it’s a LONG haul from Lafayette – partly due to the lack of conenctivity– partly due to not much there when ya get there. That being said, I don’t have any idea what kind of development they think will occur with rail in that area – TH, Vincennes and Evansville already are still crisscrossed with rail lines downtown – thank God we got ours relocated!
Lou, you’re in luck. INDoT is working on a (SR 641) bypass from somewhere between Farmersburg to Spring Mill Rd west to just south of the I-70/SR 46 interchange.
Here’s the link…
SR 641 Project
Considering the resistance Waltz is putting towards I-69 down SR37, well, it serves him right.
Thanks , varangianguard, for your link to the Terre Haute bypass project. What TH needs for us thru-travelers is a bypass such as the Vincennes bypass..Your link doesn’t seem to indicate a complete bypass around TH, only to faciliate access to I-70..
If you mean continuing on northwards, then no. Besides, that would likely cross Hulman-George lands. Who in their right mind would try that?
My choice would have been to go west, and to clean up (raze) the den of inequity called West Terre Haute. Of course that would have entailed two new bridges over the mighty Wabash.
I get the impression that they are currently clearing some of the areas to be bridged, and might attempt the 25th interchange before the plan says.
I don’t think they accounted for destroying cougar habitat yet. Who knew?
Getting to and from Evansville is REAL FUN! I never went there until I started dating my wife-who is from there. Since then I have been travelling there for seventeen years…Absolutely hate Terre Haute. And that bypass will do me no good. Hope I-69 gets completed soon. It may be best for me to travel I-65 south to Indy and then hit I-69.
I have a very hard time feeling sorry for Waltz. When he started getting someone to proof-read his campaign literature and constituent mailings and decides to move into a dwelling in his district, I’ll contemplate it.
Typical me to make a proof-reading error as I complain about someone else’s proof-reading… s/b “when he starts to get someone to proof-read” (which is not a particularly great statement, either)
Come on. Nobody is going to take a damn train from Chicago to Evansville.
I was in Crawfordsville on Friday, and stopped at the Amtrak station. There is a daily train that stops in Crawfordsville in the AM on its way to Chicago in time to make it a decent commuter option.
That station has 14 parking spaces. I counted! There were 6 cars in said spaces.
This Field of Dreams “build-it-and-they-will-come” nonsense must end. Where we have existing rail commuter options outside of the NE Corridor, they generally go unused, or under-used. The rest of us are left to pay for it. It’s so unjust, so foolish.