Driving through the county on U.S. 131 is a slow-moving vehicle with three people in it.  They look like economic developers.

You know the look.

They are counting every curb cut, every road intersecting the highway, every traffic light and every railroad crossing.  They are counting every reason traffic slows on the stretch from the Indiana state line to north of Schoolcraft.

There is a method to their curious actions.  They are gathering information for a highway campaign.

Time is money to potential industries looking to locate along U.S. 131.

Correspondingly, traffic obstructions increase shipping time and coats.

When a company transports finishes goods via truck, the average operating cost is $60 per hour.  If a truck is delayed  by three stoplights in Three Rivers, a railroad truck in Schoolcraft and a reduced speed zone, it could add 30 minutes or more to that driver’s haul. Is $30 insignificant?

What if the company sends out 20 trucks per day?  That $600 price tag is starting to sound noteworthy.  It becomes more so when multiplied by five days in a week and 52 weeks in a year.

It’s possible for those traffic obstacles to cost the theoretical company $156,000 per year.

That is a number to which site selectors take notice.  It dampens their enthusiasm for recommending new manufacturing projects along this stretch and limits the county’s business attraction efforts.

In the example above, the trucker didn’t get stopped at a red light in Constantine.  This is due to the influence of Sen. Cameron Brown and Rep. Rick Shaffer, efforts of the local U.S. 131 Committee, headed up by Brad Neumann, and other interested groups like the EDC.

The EDC had made it a top priority to continue these inroads, bolster local efforts, work with legislators and stat officials and make U.S. 131 a limited access highway.