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Indianapolis Road project to last into October

Friday, August 9, 2019
By JARED JERNAGAN, Assistant Editor

While a dry July certainly had to help progress on the project, improvements to Indianapolis Road are now expected to last well into fall.

Greencastle Mayor Bill Dory gave an update on the project during the Thursday meeting of the Greencastle City Council.

According to information from engineering and construction teams on the project, the end of October is now a projected completion date.

Before the project began, the end of July was estimated.

The project has had Indianapolis Road between the entrance of Kroger and Percy Julian limited to only westbound traffic since May 7.

While such a limitation on one of the city’s main east-west thoroughfares was an inconvenience through the summer, the return of school this past week has made things even ore difficult.

With East Washington Street serving as the most logical alternative to Indianapolis Road, traffic is greatly increased past Greencastle High School, a fact that’s especially troubling at the beginning and end of the school day.

“We do, again, appreciate everybody’s patience,” Dory said.

Crews are currently working on completing the eastbound portion of the road and sidewalke before moving on to the westbound portion.

Once complete, the road will be increased to three lanes for the entire length of the work, with sidewalks installed on both sides.

Throughout the work, access to Headley Hardware, ServiceMaster and Mona Lisa Spa and Salon has remained.

Likewise, residents of that portion of Indianapolis Road as well as Kentwood Drive still have access to their homes from the westbound lane.

Dory also reported work will begin on U.S. 231 in the city on Aug. 19 with a completion date by Oct. 18.

All work will take place between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. in hopes of having a minimal effect on traffic.

What remains unclear to city officials is whether INDOT plans to overlay the entire road or simply patch holes

“I’m just concerned that we’ll have more chuckholes when the old pavement pops up,” City Councilman Mark Hammer said.

Dory pointed out that it’s a state project and the city has no control over what is done to the road.

“It sure gives the city a black eye, though,” Hammer said.

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  • Is there a penalty built in to either of these projects? Going from a end of July completion to no end of October is not a minor miscalculation. Weather should not have been that big of an obstacle.

    -- Posted by small town fan on Sun, Aug 11, 2019, at 8:21 PM

  • I feel like I want to complain, but I know that what ever I say wont matter. Maybe if they would work on it, everytime I go through there, I only see a few guys out there in which most of the time there just standing in circles talking. Some days there not even out there. It's so sad that the public has to suffer over this because of miss management on who ever is in charge. I think its laziness on the upper city officials and who ever is in charge of the project. Lack of workers and when there are workers you'll find most of them sitting or standing in circles chatting. And the whole public has to suffer because of laziness. Maybe I need a job with these guys, I would not have to break a sweat, that's for sure.

    -- Posted by Peterpan44 on Mon, Aug 12, 2019, at 4:24 AM

  • I hope fixing the 2 traffic lights at Kroger and Franklin Street is part of this project. Seems like every vehicle is stopped there waiting for a green light. Signals should keep traffic moving, not stopped. I've spoken to City Hall about this and they just say we're stuck with it, that's the way it is.

    -- Posted by Ben Dover on Mon, Aug 12, 2019, at 11:56 AM
  • *

    Two things that will almost never happen when any government is involved:

    1) The project will be completed on time.

    2) The project will be completed on/under budget.

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Mon, Aug 12, 2019, at 12:04 PM

  • What a shame for Greencastle. Something needs to be done about this disgrace!

    -- Posted by becker on Mon, Aug 12, 2019, at 3:27 PM

  • Duke was several weeks late moving the power poles due to weather related damage and outages. The new storm sewer work had to be done first, and they went where the old poles were so the whole project was affected.

    -- Posted by Geologist on Mon, Aug 12, 2019, at 8:00 PM

  • VolunteerFF: Several weeks isn't 3 months. They've had perfect dry weather for weeks now. We should never hire this contractor again, low bid or not.

    -- Posted by Ben Dover on Tue, Aug 13, 2019, at 8:24 AM

  • To bad Wabash Valley asphalt did not get this project, it would have been done by now.

    -- Posted by becker on Tue, Aug 13, 2019, at 9:29 AM

  • Ben - I made no excuse for the contractor, just pointed out the late start. That did casue problems for many projects, not just this one. As far as not hiring the low bidder, that would jeopardize state or federal funding, so the City's hands are tied there. Yes, there have been many days they could have worked and didn't.

    Becker - Wabash Valley ran over on 231 south of Greencastle after putting the rumble strips in the wrong place, so what makes you think they would do better on this one? They are doing the asphalt paving here, and it seems to be slow going.

    Bottom line is that all contractors are very busy this year with INDOT work and are spread thin.

    -- Posted by Geologist on Tue, Aug 13, 2019, at 11:35 AM
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