ANDERSON — The next phase of adding travel lanes on Interstate 69 in Madison County is a step closer with the Indiana Department of Transportation awarding a contract last week.
Walsh Construction/Reith Riley will add a travel lane in each direction from just north of the Pendleton exit to north of Exit 222 in Anderson.
Walsh Construction/Reith Riley submitted a bid of $79.1 million. Milestone Construction bid $94.4 million. The engineer’s estimate was $88.1 million.
The starting date for the work to begin will be set once the contracts are finalized.
The work includes 8.4 miles of new construction and 6.5 miles of pavement maintenance. It will also involve work on the bridges to accommodate the third travel lane in both directions.
“This is very significant,” Chuck Staley, CEO of the Flagship Enterprise Center, said Monday. “There are between 60,000 and 70,000 vehicles that use that road on a daily basis.”
Staley said he was disappointed when the last INDOT contracts on I-69 stopped at Exit 219.
“This is important for economic development,” he said.
Rob Sparks, CEO of the Corporation for Economic Development, said the additional travel lanes add to the viability of the I-69 corridor.
With the additional travel lanes reducing the travel time to Indianapolis, the county is poised for growth, Sparks said, adding that the population of Madison County, now about 130,000, could double in the next 20 to 40 years.
“There are growth prospects in terms of housing and economic development,” Sparks said. “Madison County should be situated for the next growth spurt in the region.”
Sparks said Anderson and Madison County would benefit even more if rail transportation were available to the Indianapolis area.
“Making the commute more efficient would be beneficial to Anderson,” he said. “Double tracking to include commuter rail service has been done in other areas of the country.”
Greg Winkler, executive director of the Anderson Economic Development Department, said the additional travel lanes will reduce the travel time to the Indianapolis metropolitan area by an average of 10 minutes.
“That 10 minutes is huge,” he said. “We’ve been a part of the Indianapolis metropolitan area since the last census (2010), and this solidifies that tie.”
Winkler said purchasing a home in Anderson is a good value and the city needs more housing stock.
“We’ve seen an increase in new housing construction,” he said. “We need more housing starts.
“This is an attractive area for people to live here and not just work here,” Winkler said.