The state's plan to extend Interstate 69 through southwestern Indiana on a route partly cutting across roadless terrain has the federal government's endorsement.
However, construction work could be at least a couple years away, and funding questions remain.
In approving the route, the Federal Highway Administration followed the state's lead in turning aside complaints that upgrading existing roads would be less expensive and reduce the environmental cost.
The decision announced Monday was required to bring the long-delayed project closer to construction, but more environmental studies are needed before road work can begin.
The federal agency signed off on the route announced in January 2003 by the late Gov. Frank O'Bannon. It was one of the shortest and most expensive routes the state considered for the 142-mile extension from Indianapolis to Evansville.
Many critics have questioned whether money can be found to complete a project the Indiana Department of Transportation estimates will cost about $1.78 billion and take eight to 14 years to build.
The federal government is expected to pick up 80 percent of the tab, with state gas taxes covering the remainder. The Indiana segment is part of a larger project to create a ''NAFTA Superhighway'' linking Canada and Mexico.
State officials have talked since the 1940s about building a highway linking Indianapolis with Evansville, the state's third-largest city.
''This means a lot for southwest Indiana and all the state of Indiana,'' Gov. Joe Kernan said. ''This is a project that has been under discussion forever, it seems.''
Kernan announced the federal government's approval in news conferences in Evansville and Washington, a city of about 11,000 that is on the I-69 route about 60 miles to the north.
Robert F. Tally Jr. of the Federal Highway Administration told a standing-room-only audience of more than 100 in Evansville that the route picked by the state struck a balance between economic and environmental concerns.
Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan, a Democrat who has opposed the project primarily because of its costs, criticized the federal decision.
''It's further evidence that the project is being directed at a federal and state level much more than being determined by local government,'' he said.
With federal approval of the highway's corridor in hand, officials will begin determining a more precise path -- called a final alignment -- considering geographic and other obstacles.
That phase will be broken into six highway sections, with separate environmental impact statements prepared in advance of hearings. Approval of the alignment could take up to three years.
''The process is, and will continue to be, one that is very public,'' Kernan said.
The extension ''will serve as an economic development engine for all of southwest Indiana,'' Kernan said. ''Job growth is sure to follow its path.''
The route takes the Indiana 37 corridor from Indianapolis south past Martinsville and Bloomington, then southwest to near Washington and then roughly follows Indiana 57 to Interstate 64 north of Evansville. The highway will connect mostly rural counties primarily served by winding, two-lane roads.
Environmentalists and others have warned that the highway's construction will destroy or harm farmland and forests, taint groundwater and hurt sensitive cave ecosystems. They also suggest it would spur little economic development.
Opponents of the state's route have in many cases supported using the four-lane U.S. 41 north from Evansville to Terre Haute and then east to Indianapolis on I-70.
Terre Haute Mayor Kevin Burke on Monday expressed disappointment, but not surprise, at the federal decision.
''We don't intend to use what limited resources we have as a municipality to fight this,'' Burke said.
Critics suggested the project's cost raises doubts about whether it will ever be built.
''It's taken INDOT 14 years to reach this point, and it will take an eternity to convince Hoosiers to raise gas taxes to pay for this boondoggle,'' said Andy Knott of the Hoosier Environmental Council.
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