CRANE, Ind. — State officials are disputing claims by opponents of the Interstate 69 extension in southern Indiana that construction work on the project is creating dangerous traffic hazards.
Project foes maintain the construction work going on in Greene and Daviess counties has contributed to a crash involving a truck hauling gravel last month that killed three people and another crash this week that badly injured three people.
Members of Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads and the I-69 Accountability Project called on Wednesday for the state to shut down the highway work "until these problems are investigated and remedied."
"I-69 work is creating conditions that have led to deaths, severe injuries and extreme damage to property and aquifers," the groups said.
State highway department spokeswoman Cher Elliott told The Herald-Times of Bloomington that the crashes cited by opponents didn't happen in construction zones or involve vehicles being used by project contractors.
Construction work is under way on much of a nearly 70-mile stretch of the highway's route from near Evansville to just outside the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center southwest of Bloomington. That section is expected to be finished by the end of 2012.
A state study predicted that the I-69 route between Evansville and Indianapolis will prevent 40,000 injuries and deaths during the first 20 years it is opened to traffic.
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