City orders traffic study for busy school intersection
Greencastle officials have decided to take matters in their own hands to deal with traffic concerns at one busy intersection.
After requests to install a stoplight at the intersection of Veterans' Memorial Highway and First Street (next to Greencastle Middle School) were denied by the state highway department, city leaders decided to pay for their own traffic study and hopefully prove that a signal is indeed warranted at that spot.
The Greencastle Redevelopment Commission recently chipped in the money needed to pay for the study by Bernard and Loughmiller. The traffic data -- or phase one of the project -- has already been collected, but City Planner Shannon Norman is providing additional information that will help the company generate its final report.
She is hopeful the numbers will show the intersection needs a stoplight.
"Hopefully doing this will put us in a place to make our argument with INDOT," Norman said.
She said the concern is not only for current traffic at the intersection but for predicted growth as well.
Ivy Tech officials are planning to start building their new campus on the southeast side of the intersection in April, which will undoubtedly bring more cars to the area on a daily basis.
Norman told the Greencastle Board of Works, this week, that construction of Ivy Tech's new campus is scheduled to start April 21.
The civil engineering and site work is set to go out to bid March 25, Norman said, to be followed by final bid packets on May 20.
The April 21 construction date is actually sooner than some officials had anticipated.
"It looks like we're going to start even before we had imagined," Norman said.
One thing that won't start, unless the state highway says it can, is the installation of any stoplight. City officials support it, but since Veterans Highway is a state-maintained road, it's not the city's decision.