Symptoms highlight problem (5/23/05)

Sometimes, the symptoms tell us more than we'd ever expect.

Driving south on Interstate 69 the other day, for instance, we noticed something that had escaped us for years.

The mile markers were wrong.

At least, they were wrong in terms of how the interstate highway will exist when it's finished. And they were wrong in a way which betrays the insularity and political shortcomings of the Indiana Department of Transportation.

To understand, let us put you in charge.

Say it's your responsibility to decide on the exit numbers of an interstate highway running through Indiana. You know, going in, that the old methods used in the 1950s don't work. You can't just name the first exit number one, the second exit number two, and so on; that provides no room for growth and change. Instead, you know, exits should be based upon mile markers on the highway. That is, exit 33 should come pretty close to mile marker number 33.

Good enough.

But first you have to know where you're counting from.

And that's where INDOT messed up years ago.

Let's imagine you've entered Indiana on Interstate 69 in the northeast corner of the state. What's the first mile marker you encounter? Number one. The first exit? One?

No. It's exit 157.

Why?

Because that's how many miles it is from Indianapolis. If ever a cultural historian looking at the Hoosier state wanted a clue about how state authorities were thinking, that's it.

Any sensible bureaucrat would have started with mile one at the state line, since the exact mileage of the same highway to the state's southern boundary remains unknown.

But no.

Instead, the powers that be decided that Indianapolis is the center of the state's universe. All things should be measured from there.

Funny thing is, for years that nonsense worked. Why? Because the rest of the highway, connecting the state's southern half to its northern half, was a pipe dream.

But today, there's a good chance that will happen.

And when it does, will any of the exit numbers and mile markers on Interstate 69 make sense? Of course not.

Either the state will take on the additional expense and confusion of changing the numbers, or it will invent an entirely new Indy-based system of measuring the southbound highway.

Either way is stupid and wasteful. And anyone looking for clues about the shaping of public policy in this state has enough upon which to build a doctoral thesis. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]