By Allan Edmonds
Jean Smith, BBC member, club representative to the I-69 planning groups, and owner of Bikesmith’s led a group of 18 cyclists on an exploration along roads near the currently planned “new terrain” segment of the proposed I-69. This part of I-69 starts from a planned interchange, where it begins heading southwest from Bloomington, leaving the present Highway 37 corridor where That Road crosses 37.
Jean explained the route to the group before we set off.
Our route started from the Clear Creek Trail parking area off of That Road and at the far extreme got into some relatively unfamiliar territory, on Burch and Evans Roads.
Below is a segment of the I-69 route map. The big blue stars are interchanges. The green dots are planned overpasses. These include Tramway, Lodge, Rockport. The purple dots indicate where current roads cross the route and are tentatively planned to be closed. These include Bolin, Harmony, Evan Ln, and Burch Rd. Jean thinks it likely that Harmony will become an overpass anyway, based on recent public comments about closing off Harmony.
A bigger version of this map and more information about this segment of I-69 is available at I-69 Tier 2 Studies. At this site you can enter public comments. Note that the current deadline for comments is coming up very soon on October 28.