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Posted on 11/13/2006 4:39:40 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
If Gov. Mitch Daniels’ plan to build a tollway on the far outskirts of Indianapolis wins legislative approval, land-use experts said the highway would likely be challenged by landowners unwilling to have their land swallowed up for the project.
The bypass, dubbed the Indiana Commerce Connector, would cut about 75 miles through five counties east and south of Indianapolis, altering the landscapes of those largely rural areas.
Eminent domain — the government’s seizure of private land — almost certainly would have to be used to acquire land for the tollway, which would be built and operated by a private company.
Sam Staley, director of urban land-use policy at the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think tank, said Indiana has recently made it harder to use eminent domain just for economic development purposes.
Despite that, he said property owners in this case would have a difficult time challenging the state because courts would likely view the highway as meeting a wider public need.
“A road is a public use ... so unfortunately property owners are going to be in a pretty weak position in terms of combating this,” said Staley, who also is a senior fellow for the Indiana Policy Review.
The fact that a private company would profit by building and operating the road could help farmers and other property owners challenge government attempts to seize their land, he said.
“This is a gray area, and we’re going to have more and more of these questions coming up across the nation as more and more states realize the things Mitch Daniels is doing are pretty cutting-edge,” Staley said.
It’s unclear how much of the tollway’s estimated $1 billion to $1.5 billion cost would be spent to acquire land. Staley said that with most projects like Daniels’ proposal, the majority of property owners cooperate and sell.
Daniels has pitched his vision as a boost for Indiana’s economy and a means to help fund the $2 billion extension of Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville.
The plan needs the approval of the General Assembly, and even then the state probably would be several years from determining an exact route. Only then, would land acquisition begin.
Daniels said it could take six years before a ground breaking for the tollway.
Mick Wilson, president of the Morgan County Farm Bureau and a member of the county plan commission, said the governor’s proposal is still new to most of the county’s residents and “they’re trying to digest it and form an opinion.”
“But there will be resistance when it comes to losing property - no one ever wants to give that up,” Wilson said.
Steve LeMasters, whose 1,000-acre Shelby County farm is in the potential path for the tollway, doesn’t like the idea of a highway rolling through the middle of it.
“If they take some of my land, it could have a huge impact on my livelihood,” he said Friday. ‘’I just don’t think they’ve thought this thing out.”
-So now it's cutting edge to take private property for a private company...BTW I think Daniels is a Republican.
Yes, he is. And not a very popular one. He was previously director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Bush administration before running for governor in 2004.
If only a few dozen high profile politicians had to battle against eminent domain seizures of their own property.
But that will not happen. Politicians are above the peeples and would just circumvent the rules and the laws.
Mitch Daniels is probably the most despised INdiana REpublican ever elected to state office!
I voted for hin only because his DEmocrat opponent was pro-abortion;many of the local courthouse REpublicans also strongly disloike the man.
This toll road schemes of his and other arongance cost the REpublicans many votes last week.
This is a pro Trans-Texas Corridor ping list.
Please let me know by Freepmail if you want on or off the list.
Daniels killed his career by forcing DST when 70% didn't want it. Now apparently he's going to cut the head off of the dead career and drive a stake through its heart by taking private land through eminent domain and transferring it to another private entity.
As far as private roads go I suppose no one on this thread (or in Free Republic) has ever noticed that RAILROADS are essentially private roads. Abe Lincoln himself contributed greatly to the expansion of the nation's railroad system.
And those private railroads were some of the greediest robber barons of their time. I don't believe they are an example of how to do things right.
And they were built by land that was taken by eminent domain except for some western states that were settled after the invention of railroads.
Frequently people BEGGED the railroad company to build across their land. Seymour, Indiana, Seymour, Michigan, Seymour, Iowa and other towns named Seymour throughout the country were supposedly named "Seymour" after the name of the railroad development company representative who selected routes. He'd promised to put the railroad through any town named after him.
Railroads still exist. They've been improved through the years and today move more freight than ever.
Last thing I'd want is all that tonnage carried by the railroads to be offloaded to the government owned concrete and asphalt highways.
We'd never be able to get anywhere.
We've been discussing that quite a bit on the Trans-Texas Corridor threads.
Just as in some cases in Texas, land owners have donated land for freeways in order to make their adjacent land more valuable.
The original idea of having a 1/4 mile right of way is not as bad as folks imagine it to be. Once you hit Orange County California coming up the I5/I805 route you notice that you get into an area leading all the way into the heart of LA (the Little Tokyo area in fact) that is at least that wide.
That extra right of way has made it possible for the entire highway system to be rebuilt without interference with traffic SEVERAL TIMES.
On our latest trip out there this last Spring we noticed that for the first time in 30 years the construction projects seemed to wrapped up.
I'm confused as to who would actually use this toll road. The 465 freeway is not very crowded, especially around there. Who would pay a toll to shave 10 minutes (at the most) off their commute? Is there something here I'm not seeing?
That's part of the problem in Texas. The rail infrastructure in Texas was laid out mostly as single tracked in the nineteenth century. Many of the rail lines now go through urban areas. They have lots of grade level crossings, and it is difficult to run trains through the state at high speed. As a result lots of freight in Texas goes by truck on Interstate highways. The proposed Trans-Texas Corridor system, in addition to building toll roads for cars and heavy trucks, will have dedicated double tracked freight rail lines and other rights of way. The improved rail infrastructure will allow railroads to abandon some of their worn out track in urban areas. They'll be able to run trains from border to border at 85 mph without going through any urban areas or going across any grade level crossings. More freight will be be shipped by rail, decreasing the need to put so many trucks on the road.
Indiana started out with 80 acre farms.
That vast tract of land wasn't handed to this guy without plenty of other farmers being driven out of business.
It would appear that at least in Indiana, the legislooters are involved in the decision, unlike Texas, where Gov. Goodhair can negotiate secret deals with foreign nationals to construct the illegal alien expressway without legislative oversight.
Yeah, the free market is so evil /sarcasm
At least the state didn't steal it for him at the point of a gun.
I'd like to see a general route first. Where are points A and B? And how do we know Hillary will not have us riding in rickshaws by 2012?
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