supplement the work of the other groups, including the South Belt Local Advisory Board. BKI was fired as consultant on the project by MDOT on September 9, 1982. The switch to a new consultant delayed further study because of the timetable to take bids and interview the candidates. In the interim, work was shifted to local and state planners until a new consultant could be retained in an effort to minimize the delays involved. These local projects were focused on updating the information and maps from BKI's study and refining the scope of the highway's corridor. Gaines, Cascade, and Caledonia townships and the city of Kentwood circulated a survey amongst their communities' planning commissions and elected boards in 1982. The survey showed an inconclusive preference for a limited-access highway in what was termed a "gut level reaction" to the proposed roadway. The South Belt Citizens Committee actively started to oppose the roadway during the fall of 1982, pressing local candidates for political office to take positions on the project. The group called the roadway a "holocaust" in its mailings to the candidates. Future Lieutenant Governor Dick Posthumus, then a member of the Michigan State Senate, called for an end to the studies in 1983; he would later reverse and become one of the project's biggest supporters. MDOT hired a new consultant, Schimpeler/Coradino Associates, in 1984 to study the proposed freeway. The consultant recommended the freeway in March 1985. The South Beltline was included in the ten-year highway plan in 1986. By 1989, the state wanted to set the route in 1991 with construction starting in 1993. The freeway was studied as a possible toll road in June 1991 after three alternative routes were proposed the previous year. That September, the final route was set with a projected start date in 1997. The toll road concept was revived in September 1995 to offset the failure of a proposed gas tax increase. As a cost-saving measure, the number of interchanges was reduced to four from eight in June 1996. When a gas tax increase was passed in 1997, Governor John Engler promised at least seven access points for the freeway. The South Beltline was touted as "[cutting] travel time around Grand Rapids virtually in half". Phase I Proposals for the South Beltline Freeway were nearly 25 years old by the time initial construction was started in 1997. The Michigan State Legislature named