Noon Edition airs on Fridays at 12 p.m. on WFIU.

I-69 was an idea a group of Hoosiers in Southern Indiana first came up with in the 1970s.

The first environmental study was nearly 20 years ago. Since then the road has opened from Evansville to Bloomington. The section from Bloomington to Martinsville has been delayed several times, but now officials say they're on track to open it to traffic in August. After that, the next phase is connecting Martinsville to Indianapolis.

This week on Noon Edition we talk about the construction of I-69.

Guests:

Mayor John Hamilton, D-Bloomington

Andy Dietrick, Indiana Department of Transportation Spokesperson

Steve Oschman, Greater Mooresville I-69 Advisory Committee member

Conversation: I-69 Progress Report

Mayor John Hamilton (D-Bloomington) assumed office in January 2016, dealing with construction between his city and Martinsville for the entirety of his term so far.

While expressing confidence in the state currently and moving forward, Hamilton says he's unhappy with how the State government has handled Section 5 with an unsuccessful "public private partnership," leading to long delays in construction and traffic.

"This was really a debacle that caused a lot of pain," Hamilton says. "It caused traffic accidents and deaths and many, many, many hours of difficulty for people and this was a failure, respectfully, that the public private partnership didn't work."

Steve Oschman serves on the Greater Mooresville I-69 Advisory Committee, giving his input to planners and receiving input from his community.

Oschman is pleased that Section 5 is almost complete and looks forward to applying the lessons learned from Section 5 to the construction of Section 6 between Martinsville and Indianapolis.

"We're next. We're up to bat after this," Oschman says. "And so I'm thinking, maybe we can learn from some of the issues that you guys have just talked about and and try to apply that to the greater Mooresville area to make sure that we take care of the traffic reroutes."

Andy Dietrick is a spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Transportation.

He says that workers are on pace to have at least two lanes of traffic on Section 5 open for motorists to use by the projected completion date at the end of August.

But he cautions that work will continue at a lesser capacity for several months past that.

"It's not going to be a completely finished product," Dietrick says. "We'll be around for another three, four, maybe six months."

He also warned that frustrated Bloomington residents should avoid West Third St. until the end of August.