HB is absolutely correct

in his anti-Luddite rant with regard to the demise of Mitch’s Indianapolis bypass proposal.
But the fact is that we need that bypass. We should ban all semis (except for local deliveries, and then police the living hell out of that) from the downtown sections of I-70 and I-65 anyway — they’re a nuisance and a threat to navigation, they almost all run over the speed limit, and all they do is use the inner loop for a shortcut. Of course, if we did that, a howl would go up for a bypass. But wait, we already have a bypass — it’s called I-465.
The fact is that we’ve already banned semis from the section of I-70 going east from downtown for the duration of the Super 70 project. Why not go all the way and make it permanent for the whole inner loop?
What really made me laugh about the opposition to the new bypass was the guy who got on the Garrison show a couple of months ago and agitated against it because — as he asserted — it was going to go right through the Masonic Home in Franklin. Where this idiot got his information, I have no idea, since (as HB pointed out) there is and was no official route; just a two-mile wide swath through which the route was generally planned to go, and even that wasn’t written in stone. Plus, if said idiot had bothered to look at a map, or at Google Earth, he would have seen that it would be insane to take the route through the Masonic Home, because there’s nothing but farmland just south of it. Why would the state go to the trouble and expense to tear down and move existing communities when all that unimproved land is right next door?
The level of hyperbole on this project has been simply amazing. Get over it, indeed.
And get over (and get on with) the I-69 extension, too. Either that or let Evansville secede to Illinois or Kentucky, states that might treat it better than Indiana ever has. Sheesh.