Recently a FHWA official referred to highway opponents as the "vocal minority." He explained that both the FHWA and INDOT give much stronger credence to what "elected officials" want, believing them to represent the will of the people.

I did my best to try to explain to him that first of all, rural people whose lives are to be most affected by these new highways are few in number and therefore have limited political clout. I reminded him that all too often elected officials represent the handful of special interests who pay for their campaigns and that even given that elected officials might represent the will of the voters (most people don't vote single issues), they don't represent the will of 49% of the voters, nearly half.

And since many people simply don't vote, believing themselves powerless against an unjust system, their voices are not counted either.

In addition, most of the elected officials who lobby for these transportation projects are largely ignorant of transportation issues. In contrast, most of what he termed the "vocal minority" are people who have been studying transportation issues for decades. Clearly, INDOT is listening to the wrong people.

This summer this "vocal minority" has been on Governor Joe Kernan's campaign trail, reminding him at every stop that the majority of the people don't want I-69. I was part of such a demonstration in French Lick on August 27, and I will continue to protest this horrendous waste of taxpayer money as long as I have breath. But the problem is much larger than I-69. We need to be speaking out loudly about the way that our government does business of building roads. And I have no reason to believe that Mitch Daniels would do things differently. In many ways, I suspect that he would be worse.

The day before the French Lick protest, in a very quiet ceremony of elected officials (an event I didn't know about until I read about it later in the newspaper), a 50-mile stretch of highway in southern Indiana was renamed the "O'Bannon Highway." The dedication ceremony was held near the Doolittle Mills interchange of I-64 in Perry County, where construction on the ten-mile section of new terrain highway was begun in March.

This elevated highway will cut a destructive path through one of the most remote sections of the Hoosier National Forest purchase area, passing near Hemlock Cliffs and Yellow Birch Ravine. This highway was opposed by nearly everyone and was justified by a joke of an EIS that made a mockery of the National Environmental Policy Act. The people spoke, and they were ignored.

Probably 99% of the people in Indiana are unaware that this highway is being built— with their tax dollars. Most people around the state are also unaware, or only foggily so, of INDOT's pandering to business and industry. It should be no surprise that this new highway in rural southern Indiana will reroute SR 37 directly to French Lick and will provide a link from I-64 to the new casino city. According to associated press reports, O'Bannon was a lobbyist for this highway for many years as well as "founding member of a group of local political, business and economic development leaders who continued to push for the project." That goes a long way to explain why the ninety percent of the people who don't want such highways are simply dismissed as a "vocal minority."

Also on INDOT's fast track is reconstruction of the highway from French Lick to SR 37. At recent meetings there, INDOT officials promised to work with casino owners in dealing with highway issues concerning the highway in the French Lick area itself. In a Springs Valley Herald article, INDOT's own Brian Nichol is quoted: "We want to do everything we can to accelerate the job. There are right-of-way issues on all the projects we have to go through, but we are going to do everything we can to move this project forward. This project is still a top priority to the department."

That statement rather sums things up. While I-69 is still inching forward, the top projects of the day are the smaller, cheaper projects like the O'Bannon casino highway. What a shame that INDOT plows ahead, covering southern Indiana with concrete, while most of the people in the state are aware of only the "big one." By the time INDOT gets around to actually building I-69, all these smaller, yet equally destructive projects will have already been built.

To save Indiana from total devastation and to focus attention on creating a transportation policy of the future that will serve all our needs, we must loudly protest not just I-69, but all of INDOT's misguided new highways that are being built for only a few special interests. We need to let people all across Indiana know that I-69, though the largest, is only one of many such wasteful and destructive projects planned for our state. We need to demand a change in the way INDOT does business.

Jeanne Melchior is president of Protect Our Woods.