The Great Interchange Battle.

The year 1965 may go down in Hanover-Norwich history as the year of the great interchange battle, a controversy about getting travelers off and on Interstate 91 which by December 1968 is expected to be com- pleted as far north as Thetford. Route 1-91 follows the Connecticut Valley and is now available from Greenfield, Mass. to Ascutney, Vt.; in December 1968 it will be less than a mile from campus - on the Norwich side of the river.

The controversy concerns the interchange now planned by the Vermont Highway Department which would take cars off the Interstate right onto a new Route 10A, the "lifeline" between the Hanover and Norwich communities, and send them into Hanover over the existing Ledyard Bridge and up East Wheelock Street to the Inn corner. Norwich opponents of the interchange as now planned believe it will make Norwich-Hanover traffic "complicated and hazardous," especially because of the school traffic necessitated by the cooperative school district. Hanover opponents want time to study the town's ever-increasing traffic difficulties, especially since the results of an extensive survey are expected in several months.

Various alternatives have been proposed: an interchange north of the proposed outlet, a new bridge several miles up the river, no interchange at all. Petitions pro and con have been circulating about both towns. The situation is further complicated by a Norwich town vote (by a slim margin) in favor of the proposed interchange last spring.

A delay in action on the 10-A interchange has the support of the Hanover and Norwich Boards of Selectmen and the College.