Talk of a highway improvement project connecting the Rockport, Indiana area through Huntingburg and Jasper and hooking up to I69 is ramping up.
The Mid States Corridor Project is examining the concept and along with INDOT has started an Environmental Impact Statement required by the federal government. It’ll take two years to complete the statement.
Public meetings on the matter are required and they are scheduled for early August. The first one will be in Washington at the High School on August 5th from 5:30 to 7. Ir will feature an open house format consisting of a short project presentation and then the public can visit various stations to ask questions and fill out comment cards.
The statement is meant to provide information such as:
- Analysis and comparison of benefits, impacts and costs of a range of reasonable options to identify a preferred corridor for the proposed facility
- Assessment of the social, economic and environmental impacts of each corridor, along with consideration of ways to avoid, minimize or mitigate impacts
- Identification of the project’s purpose and need, and consideration of a variety of options to meet both, including improvements to and use of existing facilities and construction of new roadway facilities
- Analysis of a no-build alternative to serve as a baseline for comparison