The council recently voted to approve a resolution that urges Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Indiana Department of Transportation Commissioner Joe McGinness to complete U.S. 31 from Hamilton County to Howard County, and on to Marshall County, as a freeway without any of the previously proposed J-turns.
“This was originally brought up because of the J-turn issue. The state wanted to put J-turns on U.S. 31, and that’s been resolved, at least for now,” said Bagwell, who first submitted the resolution to the council in June.
“But we still wanted to go ahead and do this. There are a lot of other things in here, as far as moving forward with U.S. 31.”
Last month, the state Department of Transportation announced it will not install J-turns at intersections along U.S. 31 after the proposal received fierce pushback from local officials and area residents.
INDOT announced plans earlier this year to eliminate the traffic lights along U.S. 31 at the intersections of Indiana 218 West and Indiana 18 and install J-turns – an alternative to traditional roadway intersections that requires traffic turning onto U.S. 31 to first travel south or north and then make a U-turn into traffic.
The proposal drew almost instant criticism from both elected and local officials, who said the move would make the four-lane highway more dangerous and waste taxpayer money on an upgrade that wouldn’t solve any problems.
In response, INDOT pulled the proposal for the two Miami County intersections. The department said it is also pulling its plans to install J-turns on U.S. 31 in Marshall County at Indiana 10 and 110, and on U.S. 24 in Cass County at 600 East and Logansport Road.
State Rep. Bill Friend, R-Macy, who was an outspoken critic of the proposals, said the decision from INDOT not to move forward came after he and state Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, met with INDOT and the Governor’s office to echo the community’s reservations over installing new J-turns.
“No single proposal in recent memory has drawn the amount of opposition and protest as much as this proposal to install J-turns on U.S. 31,” Friend said.
In conjunction, the Howard County resolution urges Holcomb and McGinness “to immediately begin the process for completion of U.S. 31 between north terminus of the U.S. 31 Freeway in Hamilton County to the south terminus of the Howard County section of U.S. 31 Freeway and between the north terminus in Howard County to the south terminus of the U.S. 31 Freeway in Marshall County.”
Effectively, the council voted to make U.S. 31 “a stoplight free, at-grade crossing free, driveway access free, and railroad crossing free Freeway, without any of the proposed J-Turns, which we believe are not an acceptable solution for a high speed highway, especially a Freeway style highway, due to the speed of traffic that is anticipated on the U.S. 31 Freeway.”
LaMar Holliday, media relations director with INDOT’s east central district, noted the department started a feasibility study in April 2016 focused on “maintaining and enhancing traffic capacity, safety, economic development opportunities and logistics opportunities of the corridor through the identification of a strategy to reach full free modernization.”
Holliday said the study is likely to be completed in early 2018.
“Once the study is finished, there will be a discussion on what alterations can be made to the current roadway structures that will allow for a free-flowing path between Indianapolis and South Bend,” he explained.
“Traffic volumes, crash history, land use, environmental concerns and utility crossing are all being considered in this process.”
Such work, the Howard County resolution states, could be funded through House Bill 1002, which added an extra 10 cents per gallon gas tax and other increases. Holliday, though, said it is too early to speculate on project funding, and will be until the study is complete.
Currently, there are nearly 150 direct access driveways, 100 road intersections and two at-grade railroad crossings on the “unimproved portions” of U.S. 31, according to the resolution.
The resolution also states that proposed freeway completion is projected to generate 1,190 jobs, $366 million in economic output and $212 million in personal income to Hoosiers, and could result in 1,200 fewer accidents and 15 fewer fatalities, local officials believe.
In regards to economic development, Bagwell, who referenced the Wal-Mart and Dollar General distribution centers situated directly off Interstate 69 in Indiana, said the presence of Grissom Air Reserve Base could bring opportunities to area counties.
Grissom currently possesses the longest runway in Indiana.
“They will put those kinds of distribution centers along an interstate, but they won’t put them along something like the way [U.S. 31] is right now, north of here and south of here,” he said.
“They don’t want their semis having interference with stoplights and at-grade crossings and things like that. …[Grissom] can’t be utilized for commercial business because – mainly because nobody wants to locate there, because, again, there’s no freeway.”