U.S. 31 Kokomo Corridor ready for construction boom

scott.smith@kokomotribune.com

In the January gloom, the only work on the U.S. 31 Kokomo Corridor Project goes on largely unseen.

With freezing rain pelting down, crews were busy this week setting forms and pouring concrete on a box culvert, working in a field several hundred yards south of East Boulevard.

Nearby, the form of a roadbed has been scooped out of the earth, stretching north from Southway Boulevard, but the machinery awaits the end of the winter mud. It's almost as if the Corridor project has gone dormant.

Come springtime, it will be difficult to drive east of Kokomo without seeing some new evidence of the $345 million Corridor project.

Four construction projects will get the green light this year, and the pace of the Boulevard interchange project, slowed by winter, will rev back up.

By the end of 2010, all but the northern and southern ends of the 13-mile Corridor will be under contract, with the entire project scheduled to finish by the end of 2013.

Spurred by Indiana's Major Moves fund and federal stimulus dollars, one of the key components of Indiana's future north-south interstate is set to take a giant leap forward.

"Indiana's the only state remotely like this," Gov. Mitch Daniels said earlier this month, just after announcing the accelerated timetable for the Kokomo Corridor. "The rest of America is crumbling, and we're building at a record rate."

Morgan Street will close this year as a bridge is built to take 200 North over the future bypass. A large wetland, northeast of Kokomo, will be drained. A logjam will be pulled out of a creek at Jerome.

And construction will begin on more than 8 miles of main line roadway.

From south of Ind. 26 to north of the new Morgan Street bridge, the "bypass to the bypass" will be laid down, in concrete, steel and asphalt.

Construction will start on the Charlie Cropper Memorial Bridge, over Kokomo Creek. Another bridge will begin, which will eventually carry the new highway over the Wildcat Creek, a railroad line and Sycamore Road all in one shot.

Indiana Department of Transportation officials say enough progress has been made on engineering design and right-of-way acquisition to move up the planned completion date up by two years.

"Two things really make the Corridor project unique in today's environment," INDOT spokesman Will Wingfield said. "First, it's built on a new alignment. We don't really build on new alignments any longer. That was really the domain of the previous generation. And because it's on a new alignment, developing the project is a lot less complex."

With much of the land undeveloped, the state has fewer parcels of land to purchase, Wingfield added.

Finally, because the state isn't upgrading an existing highway, "access issues don't come into play."

"You don't have all the road closures, partial closures, work zones, business access points, etc. that you would otherwise," he said.

The Kokomo Corridor is one of three major corridor projects that will eventually cut more than one hour off the round trip from Indianapolis to South Bend.

Both the Hamilton County and St. Joseph/Marshall county sections of the project are at least partially built along the existing U.S. 31 corridor.

Work began first around South Bend, but the Kokomo Corridor should overtake South Bend's completion schedule. Work in Hamilton County isn't expected to finish until 2018.

Wingfield said little has been done thus far in Hamilton County, apart from engineering work, and the cost of acquiring expensive right-of-way through Westfield and Carmel is expected to push the cost of the Hamilton County segment upwards of $600 million.

The first work in Hamilton County is due to start in 2011, at the northern-most point of the Hamilton County Corridor - at Ind. 38, he added.

By then, the contract for the southern terminus of the Kokomo Corridor will be ready to award. Only the northern terminus, which will stretch to one mile north of the present U.S. 35 (to Logansport) intersection, will have to wait until 2012 for a contract award.

Wingfield said about half of the land needed for the Kokomo Corridor is already acquired, and about $61 million has been spent so far on the project.

Bids for the two bridges at 50 North and 200 South came in 33 percent and 37 percent below engineer's estimates, respectively, he added.

"That increased hunger for projects among the contractors is making itself shown, so now is a great time to invest in infrastructure," he said.