Andy Dietrick said he’s talked to several frustrated Indiana University students ahead of this weekend’s commencement. They’re upset because friends and family coming to the ceremony will have to contend with a road construction project that’s lasted for four years.
“There are some students who, this is all they know of getting in and out of Bloomington,” the Indiana Department of Transportation spokesman said.
Dietrick can’t change what’s already happened, but he does get the pleasure of telling students, and anyone else who calls, that the end is in sight. The project converting 21 miles of Ind. 37 to Interstate 69 is on schedule to be substantially completed by Aug.
31. Some work, such as landscaping and lane striping, will continue after that date, but all major construction should be done before IU’s first home football game of the 2018 season.
Considerable pieces of the project will be finished this summer. Interchanges at Tapp and Sample roads in Monroe County and Liberty Church Road in Morgan County are expected to open on or around Memorial Day.
Restrictions on the Bloomfield Road/Ind. 45 bridge should be lifted on or around July 4, Dietrick said. The Chambers Pike overpass should also be open on or around July 4.
Other portions of the project will still be under construction until the end of August. Wayport Road, which runs just east of Ind. 37 south of Sample Road, is one of those. It will serve as an access road to homes and businesses, such as a Mobil/Circle K gas station just east of the highway. Wayport will eventually be extended south to the I-69 Section 5 project office off Connaught Road.