Peak Oil Task Force Report - City of Bloomington - State of Indiana

Simultaneously, the State of Indiana wished to increase opportunities for tourism and
economic development around the recently‐completed Lake Monroe. Large numbers of
day‐trippers from the communities to Bloomington’s north, especially Indianapolis, were
expected to use the lake for summertime recreation, and preparations for traffic
management were made. These preparations included the provision of a second bypass
around the city, connecting State Road 37 on the city’s north to a new highway down to the
lake outside the eastern edge of the city. Neither bypass remained rural for very long. The
first to sprout was the “College Mall” area, established on formerly agricultural land in
1965 and connected to the city both by the new eastern bypass as well as by a widened
Third Street. Immediately, the College Mall began to draw economic activity away from the
city’s downtown which entered a long, but not particularly sharp decline cushioned by the
presence of Indiana University’s urban campus.
Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force
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