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Major MOVES --
High Speed Rail Indiana needs real answers to its growing transportation problems. Roads are not the answer. INDOT reveals I-465/I-69 redesign plans. 10/16/07. Five years from now, construction could start on fixing the traffic snarls at this interchange. A band-aid fix to a much bigger problem. Hoosiers might as well just flush $550 million down the toilet. Indy drivers waste 43 hours a year in gridlock. With no relief in sight. WHAT is Major Moves? "Major Moves" is Mitch Daniels' 'transportation' program under INDOT through the year 2015. From leasing the Indiana Toll Road to foreign agencies, Mitch plans to spend the billions of revenue on paving more roads and extending I-69 to Texas. While it does provide relief in the funding gap for some much-needed local road repairs and upgrades, it contains no provisions for any modern public/rapid transit to Hoosiers. What is the missing piece in this puzzle? Trains. While other cities, states, and countries have adopted rail as a way to relax their roadways, Indiana and other Midwestern places are suffering while state government struggles to maintain existing roads. You can read more about the Major Moves project here. More like... Major GOOFS SPENDING BILLIONS on pork-barrel road projects is not the common-sense answer. Roads are costly to build and maintain. They deteriorate quickly and must be entirely replaced every 10 to 40 years, depending on traffic conditions. Instead of updating an infrastructure which gets swallowed up by potholes and has to be constantly replaced, a high speed rail system is the better alternative. The Future RAIL is the transit mode of choice. The benefits include time savings, as well as enhancing your lifestyle and productivity by saving money related to vehicle maintenance, gasoline, unexpected breakdowns, insurance, and the list goes on. Cities with rail systems will see increased ridership and growth, as more people get tired of sitting in traffic. OIL SUPPLY will not last forever. Gas and energy prices will continue to increase. MITCH DANIELS wants to pave thousands of miles of roads instead of bringing future-proof modes of transportation to the Midwest. As energy prices climb, more motorists take the roads, and combustion engines continue to clog our air, does building more roads really make any sense? Your politicians want to put your money in their pockets instead of doing the right thing. Our Position BUILDING MORE ROADS IS NOT THE ANSWER. Roads should complement mass transit. Roads are more expensive to maintain and build in the long run than high speed rail lines. Rail is more efficient and much faster than roads. I-69 is a waste of money for all taxpayers in the United States. To make Major Moves, we should consider the alternatives. AMTRAK is the only rail system between Indianapolis and Chicago, and to the east coast. It's slow, inefficient, and hardly cost effective. A high speed rail system linking the major Midwestern cities is the only real answer. Amtrak routes should be modernized to handle high speed trains. NEW TERRAIN I-69 should be the last thing on Indiana's list of priorities. Indiana cannot afford to spend more money on massive, dead-end road projects. THE ENVIRONMENT will suffer while idle gas guzzlers spew carbon dioxide on congested interstates, because there are no trains to bypass the gridlock. PROPER INVESTMENT of the ITR Concessions deal revenue would be improving the infrastructure on the roads we already have and investing in rail for Hoosiers. Better Intelligent Traffic System (ITS) installations along the proposed new I-69 route along SR37 would be a wiser choice. Trains next. RAIL TRANSIT IS FEASIBLE. Big Oil companies have lobbied against it in Washington because it threatens their bottom line. Politicians in Congress have probably taken bribes to defeat these measures. However, you need to make your voice heard. Every voice makes a difference. Take Action, Hoosiers INFORM your representatives in Washington that you are serious about saving Hoosiers money, cutting dependence on foreign oil, and enhancing traveler safety. Call your lawmakers and demand that Indiana stop making MAJOR GOOFS and start making REAL MAJOR MOVES.
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