Fork in the road: 1-69 choices are down to five. What will it mean for Betty's diner?

• Author: Kaelble, Steve
• Position: Opener - Indiana eatery stands business increase with new interstate - Brief Article

Any restaurant owner knows that good traffic is the key to success. Betty Wright's restaurant stands a decent chance of seeing a tremendous increase in traffic--but hopefully not right through the kitchen.

Wright owns the Village Inn, which has been serving catfish, fried chicken and other home-style meals for more than 50 years along State Road 57 a few miles south of Petersburg. Of the five possible routes for the Interstate 69 extension now under consideration, three follow State Road 57 through the Petersburg area on the way from Indianapolis to Evansville.

For the Village Inn, having an interstate nearby could be a good thing. If proponents are correct, I-69 will eventually become the preferred route linking Canada, the United States and Mexico, a true "NAFTA Highway." That's a lot of potential hungry travelers, and the Village Inn is on a stretch of road that currently doesn't have too many dining options.

"It's a ways to the next what I'd consider a city," Wright says. "If I were hungry, I definitely would stop."

The Indiana Department of Transportation announced in mid-October that it had cut the list of potential I-69 routes to five, from an earlier roster of 14. Some of the routes draw a relatively straight line between Indianapolis and Evansville, following various combinations of existing roads along with new paths where there are no roads. The route pushed by many environmentalists follows I-70 to Terre Haute, then U.S. 41 to Evansville.

J. Bryan Nicol, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation, insists that the five routes will all get equal consideration. The department, he says, will spend the next several months gathering additional data and collecting input from individuals and businesses, with the hope of selecting a preferred corridor by the middle of next year.

"Our job...