JOHNSON COUNTY — Plans for the final section of the Interstate 69 upgrade connecting southern Indiana to Indianapolis have been unveiled. Section 6, as the portion is known, runs from Martinsville to Indianapolis.
The Johnson County Board of Commissioners approved the plans on Dec. 17, and now, community members are voicing their opinions, mostly at Aspire Johnson County meetings.
“Aspire is an organization of Johnson County residents who are looking at ways to improve the county, to get involved, and to move issues forward,” Jody Veldkamp, a Johnson County resident and Aspire volunteer, said.
Most of the response has been of excitement.
“We know that it’s going to be an economic driver for the west side of our county, for Bargersville, for the White River township, even into Greenwood, Franklin and Whiteland, all the way down to Trafalgar and Edinburgh,” Dana Monson, the chief executive officer and executive director of Johnson County Development Corporation, said.
Neighbors are voicing concerns about limited access points, only three, at County Line Road, Smith Valley Road and State Road 144.
"I think that traffic may be an issue, and over time, they’ll figure out that they’re really going to need another exit,” Jill Levenhagen, a White River Township resident, said.
In order to help with the limited access points, Johnson County has made a plan to make road improvements on some of the side roads that drivers will use with the limited access.
“What I like about the plan is that they’ve prioritized things such as Smith Valley, such as Morgantown, those roads need to be widened," Veldkamp said. "They need to go from two lanes, four, sometimes even five lanes on those roads. We need to look at the impact of how we’re going to handle that traffic going through those neighborhoods.”
In total, the plan includes 28 roads that need to be improved.
Another concern is that White River Township Fire Station No. 53's current location is right at one of those access points, Smith Valley Road.
"It will make this building, non-functional as a fire department," Chief Jeremy Pell of the White River Township Fire Department, said.
Pell told RTV6 that INDOT paid for the new building location, right in front of Center Grove Middle School and Pleasant Grove Elementary School, leaving some of the 36,000 residents served by the department a little on edge, in the event of an emergency.
However, Pell said the new location will actually better serve the community, as a whole.
"I think it will improve response times to most areas because we'll actually have increased north south access roads," Pell said. "So that saves us navigating a roundabout or an intersection, or the exit that we have right here close to the highway. And Smith Valley Road. So that's where it's going to make a big difference.”
The project is expected to break ground sometime in the next two or three years, with a hope to be complete within the next 7 years.
The full scope of the project includes those three interchanges, widening and resurfacing of the interstate.
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