Public Shows Support For On-Route U.S. 30 ConceptAs county residents walked into the U.S. 30 presentation at the Warsaw Performing Arts Center Tuesday night, they were offered “No Bypass” signs.
Turns out, the signs weren’t needed as a bypass around the city wasn’t the concept city and county officials presented at the public meeting. Instead, city and county representatives discussed converting the current U.S. 30 route into a freeway, and – by a show of hands – the approximately 200 people in attendance fully supported the on-route idea. They were opposed to a northern or southern route.
Of course, the final decision will be up to the Indiana Department of Transportation, but Warsaw and Kosciusko County officials now have a concept the public backs to take to the state.
The panel discussion presenting the U.S. 30 on-route idea included Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, Warsaw Community Economic and Development Director Jeremy Skinner, Middle District County Commissioner Cary Groninger, Kosciusko Area Plan Assistant Director Matt Sandy, City Planner Justin Taylor and Michiana Area Council of Governments Executive Director James Turnwald.
Thallemer opened the nearly two-hour community meeting by talking about the process and how they got to this point. It was the third public meeting on U.S. 30, with the first one held over two years ago.
“I want you to understand that the input we get, the input is important to try and really just create an opinion or a public thought of how we want U.S. 30 to look in the next 10 to 15 years,” Thallemer said.
There’s been a significant increase in traffic, especially truck traffic, on U.S. 30, he said, and with that comes a significant increase in accidents. There’s an accident within the city limits on U.S. 30 every 2.5 days, and it’s not getting any better, he said.
Thallemer said after a meeting in February where he was able to present, with the U.S. Coalition, on U.S. 30, the Indiana Governor’s Office and INDOT made the decision to fund a planning and environmental linkage (PEL) study that will take a deep dive into the problem. The study will look at U.S. 30 from the Ohio state line west to Porter County, at a cost of approximately $25 million.
Thallemer said there’s seven counties included in the U.S. 30 Coalition, including Allen, Whitley, Kosciusko, Marshall, Starke, LaPorte and Porter.
As part of the PEL study, INDOT will look at everything, Thallemer said, including on-route, doing nothing, bypass routes north and south and other ideas.
“Our role is to try and understand what our community wants and to present some options so that when INDOT comes in – a big part of INDOT’s planning and environmental linkage studies is going to be public input. There will be meetings just like this. And at the end of the day, INDOT is going to make the decision,” Thallemer said, adding that at the end of the two-year PEL study there will probably be a good indication of which way INDOT will go.
Turnwald said, “This is a long process. And I know you want it to be maybe a quicker process to address the issues you’re having today. But this will take some time. I want to tell you that upfront because we need your engagement as the process plays out. Because we want to be able to tell INDOT what this area wants U.S. 30 to be.”
He said the PEL study typically lasts around 18 months on average, but the public needs to stay engaged during that time because INDOT will be working with their consultants on “high-level solutions to transportation challenges.”
Skinner presented a proposed draft of the city’s on-route concept of U.S. 30 from Fox Farm Road to CR 250E. Groninger presented the concept that included the areas from Ind. 19 to CR 500W and then Pierceton to the Whitley County line. The city will put the maps up on at its website, which can be found at warsaw.in.gov. In between the two presentations and after Groninger’s, there were questions from the public, but no one spoke against the on-route U.S. 30 freeway concept.
Skinner said, “So while all of this is a draft and concept, the end result that we wanted to provide was something that we thought was feasible.”
Coming in from the west, the first likely interchange into the city would be around the Fox Farm Road area, he said. Silveus Road would most likely be a grade separation over U.S. 30. From Silveus to Ind. 15, there would be no egress or ingress roads, it would all be freeway. Ind. 15 would likely stay an interchange, while Anchorage Road would be another grade separation.
Grade separation means that a driver wouldn’t be interacting with U.S. 30 but the driver can go over or under it. An interchange provides an opportunity to get on and off U.S. 30 and the driver can still go over or under it, according to Skinner.
An intersection/interchange in the concept presented but that doesn’t exist now would come off North Pointe and Mariners Drive near the YMCA and Parkview, Skinner said.
“We’ve looked at both a grade separation and interchange at Parker Street,” he said. After a lot of meetings, it was determined traffic on Parker Street was mostly just trying to get across U.S. 30. Initially, Parker Street was looked at as an interchange, but INDOT doesn’t like interchanges too close together, so the concept presented Tuesday was for Parker to be a grade separation. “Which would that traffic to continue flow in and out of Warsaw, but it wouldn’t allow you to get on or off U.S. 30 at this location.”
For Center Street, which is half an interchange now, Skinner said they would propose to make it a full interchange. The last interchange would be at CR 250E. Thallemer noted frontage roads are a big part of the concept for the on-route U.S. 30 freeway proposal.
During the first Q&A session, several suggestions were given to the panel, including parallel roads and double-stack roads.
Dan Brown, a road builder with Phend & Brown, said U.S. 30 was built about 50 years ago. “So, what is traffic going to look like in 50 years? We have 30,000 vehicles a day today. Even if it only grows 3% a year, in 50 years we’re going to have 100,000 vehicles a day or very close to it. So, this is going to take a bold solution because whatever is done here will take another 50 years to come around again,” he said.
Warsaw is growing, Brown said, and the city needs U.S. 30 to be a freeway to keep growing. Economic development won’t happen in congestion, he said.
Don Zolman, local businessman, said, “If you’re asking which route that people prefer, for myself, I certainly prefer this route.” His comment drew a big round of applause from those in attendance. The other two routes take out too much land, he said.
In his presentation for the route outside of the city limits, Groninger said the concept provides for a full interchange at Ind. 19, with the next interchanges at CR 800W and CR 500W. After the Warsaw city limits, there would be an interchange at Ind. 13, though the town of Pierceton was concerned about having a grade separation at Arnolt Drive for their employers there.
From Ind. 13 to the Whitley County line, there would be no other interchanges.
Ryan Martin, with Kosciusko County Farm Bureau, was concerned about closing off rural roads that farmers use to get their large farming equipment from south of U.S. 30 to north of U.S. 30. He asked if there was an INDOT rule regarding how many roads had to be closed for every overpass. Turnwald said he wasn’t aware of any such rule. Thallemer said that’s the kind of concerns INDOT needs to hear during the PEL study.
A final part of the presentation was if a northern route for U.S. 30 was feasible and Skinner said it was, though there would be several challenges environmentally and because of the airport.
Asked for a show of hands of who supported the on-route U.S. 30 plan, at least the majority of those present raised their hands.
