Consultants have been selected by the Indiana Department of Transportation to guide Tier Two alignment for the I-69 corridor as it passes through Monroe County. DLZ Corporation out of South Bend and Michael Baker Jr. Corporation of Crown Point will set up Bloomington offices within the next two weeks.
I-69 route 3-C planning is divided into six sections from Evansville to Indianapolis. The consultants will study their respective districts with scientific surveys and community impact assessments. They will both complete draft and final environmental impact statements as well as another record of decision regarding their districts.
DLZ Senior Planner Bruce Hudson will oversee highway planning for District Four from the northwest tip of Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center in Greene County up to northeast State Road 37. He says three to four staff members will work at the Bloomington office, but several others will be hired to examine the karst topography and Indiana bat populations along the route.
"Our team is a little different from some of the other ones because we have seven subconsultants working with us because of specialties," says Hudson. "You get into the cultural resources and you're looking at archeological and historic besides the karst and the bats, there's four specialists right there that expand our team quite a bit."
Baker Corporation Project Manager Wendy Vachet will oversee I-69 planning from Highway 37 to the southern end of Martinsville around Victor Pike. She says she wants to hear input from highway supporters and opponents to guide the process.
"Now is the time to be open, the public involvement process," says Vachet. "There will be websites to meetings to individual meetings. The project office will be an open forum. And participation both positive and negative will never be discouraged. We're here to try to listen and hopefully be able to bring those concerns to a local level that will specifically focus on section five, Bloomington and access."
Vachet says some Monroe County residents may have already received notice of survey letters in the mail. She says scientific surveys to study karst topography and Indiana bat populations have already begun.