Hoosier Heartland Highway pumps up hope on prairie Expressway construction starting two years early LAFAYETTE-For years, they’ve driven on little more than paved-over wagon trails pioneers carved into the hills nestling the Wabash River. Motorists on State Road 25 between Logansport and Lafayette have grown desperate for a replacement: the final, 33-mile western leg of […]
in an uncommon move among Indiana manufacturers typically more preoccupied with foreign competition and deteriorating margins,
Knauf Insulation is rebuilding its research and development facility, destroyed in a fire last year, to make it 30 percent
more energy-efficient than a conventional office building of its size.
LAFAYETTE-For years, they’ve driven on little more than paved-over wagon trails pioneers carved into the hills nestling the Wabash River. Motorists on State Road 25 between Logansport and Lafayette have grown desperate for a replacement: the final, 33-mile western leg of the “Hoosier Heartland Highway.” Today, the Hoosier Heartland expressway ends in Logansport-the western terminus of a newly improved, four-lane U.S. 24 that runs east, to Fort Wayne. But last month Gov. Mitch Daniels surprised highway proponents with word that…
Citizens Gas has closed the valve on plans to buy synthetic natural gas from a $1.5 billion coal gasification plant slated for southwestern Indiana, leaving two other Indiana utilities as the initial customers. The Indianapolis gas utility attributed the pullout to the diversification of its gas supply since the Indiana Gasification LLC project was announced in October 2006. Citizens also signaled it would look at buying more supply through a gas purchasing authority it and two other municipal utilities created…
ATA Airlines said today it would close its Chicago Midway hub and cease all scheduled service there, starting with domestic flights on April 14 and international flights as of June 7. The announcement comes after ATA parent Global Aero Logistics said in a January regulatory filing that it was considering selling all or part of […]
Browning Investments is contemplating developing a business park just north of Indianapolis International Airport in what
would be the largest development to date in the so-called Minnesota Street corridor.
A bill that would have removed hurdles to state and local prosecution of environmental crimes has perished in committee, leaving the federal government virtually alone as the sole seeker of jail time for the worst offenders. With the demise of Senate Bill 199, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management will continue to resolve most pollution cases through civil penalties rather than bringing criminal charges. Last year, IDEM assessed $5.2 million in civil penalties, down from $7.75 million in 2006 but…
AAR Corp., the Wood Dale, Ill., company that took over the abandoned United Airlines repair base three years ago, said it hopes to add more than 300 workers this year in Indianapolis. Mayor Greg Ballard is expected to attend a press conference early this afternoon announcing the expansion. AAR currently has 925 employees working in […]
If the introduction of modern streetcars to one West Coast city can be replicated here, Indianapolis would see new, higher-density
housing and related retail and restaurants shadowing the line. Fallow areas crossed by the tracks would become fertile for
new investment. At least that was the case in Portland, Ore., a city mesmerizing to Indianapolis civic leaders, who last month
formed Downtown Indianapolis Streetcar Corp. They risk being run out of town on a rail: a streetcar line will cost…
By the time Jesse Kharbanda earned a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford, the University of Chicago student already knew he wanted to advocate environmental policies in the developing world, someday. Eight years later, some might say Kharbanda has landed in the developing world, all right-Indiana, insofar as it’s considered the backwater of environmental stewardship. One might recall the state’s 49thplace ranking in a 2007 review of “greenest” states by Forbes magazine. Only West Virginia-a national leader in illiteracy-scored worse….
The prospect of urban sprawl might swallow up even those agencies tasked with planning for sprawl’s consequences. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization is exploring a merger with Anderson’s MPO, according to the Indianapolis agency’s 2008 Unified Planning Work Program report. “The rapid growth of the Northeast Corridor has blurred the boundaries between the Anderson and Indianapolis MPOs; a joint committee is currently exploring whether consolidation is warranted,” states the report. MPOs are virtually invisible agencies to the public even though…
Some top civic leaders have quietly created a not-for-profit organization to study and build a streetcar “circulator” system downtown. Downtown Indianapolis Streetcar Corp. would bring the electric vehicles to the streets for the first time since the 1950s. Notable members of the group include Bob Bedell, former president of the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association, […]
The more than 4,000 employees at the region’s second-largest manufacturer are waiting to learn whether some will lose their jobs. Rolls-Royce Group PLC plans to cut up to 2,300 U.S. and European positions. The British aerospace company on Jan. 11 said it plans to slash its work force by almost 6 percent among managerial, professional and clerical ranks. It blames rising raw material costs and the declining value of the U.S. dollar. First-half 2007 profits of $600 million were roughly…
ATA Airlines is eliminating 30 positions at its Indianapolis headquarters while its Georgia-based parent considers options for its scheduled service business-including selling it in part or whole. Steve Forsyth, spokesman for Peachtree City, Ga.-based Global Aero Logistics, confirmed the job cuts to IBJ today. The cuts are due partly to rising fuel prices and decreases […]
The “event data recorder,” a so-called black box car makers have installed in their cars over the last decade and a half as
part of air-bag systems, can be a double-edged sword for motorists. Yet they likely don’t even know it’s spying from under
their seat or dashboard.
Removing a post-retirement health plan for retirees would amount to breaking a “solemn promise,” a former top executive of Indianapolis Power and Light once told state regulators. A dozen years later, those words are coming back to haunt the utility in a case before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission that seeks to force IPL to pay up to $115 million to back-fund a retirement plan it spun off in 2001. The complaint, filed in November, also demands that IPL resume…
Earnings of Celadon Group plunged 72 percent in the quarter ended Dec. 31, the Indianapolis-based trucking company reported yesterday, reflecting a continued downturn in the industry. Net income of $1.7 million was down from $6.1 million for the same quarter the previous year. Earnings per share fell to 8 cents, from 26 cents a year […]
Two bills in the Indiana Legislature would require utilities that operate here to supply up to 25 percent of their electricity from renewable resources such as wind, landfill gas, and plant and animal waste. Backers say utilities need more incentive to diversify from coal-based power generation.
Northwest Airlines flight 1829–stranded on a Detroit taxiway for seven hours with lavatories overflowing and the 198 souls
aboard without food or water–has now landed at the Indiana General Assembly. Two Republican lawmakers have proposed creating
an “airline consumer advocate” to resolve disputes on behalf of passengers who’ve endured poor service.
A high-flying Carmel businessman who moved his base of operations to Miami a couple of years ago is accused of burning through
$160 million of investors’ money in the collapse of his real estate empire.
