MARTINSVILLE — Interstate 69 has continued to inch its way into Morgan County, with heavy machinery and orange- and white-striped barrels lining the Ind. 37 corridor.
Section 5 of the interstate project, which runs from the Indian Creek bridge south of Martinsville to where the new-terrain sections meet Ind. 37 south of Bloomington, is on track to be completed by the end of 2016, said Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation.
That includes the construction of a new interchange at Liberty Church and Godsey roads.
“You’re seeing construction taking shape in the way of crews building up dirt to eventually build an interchange at the location,” he said.
Access roads from Turkey Track Road to Indian Creek, as well as new mainline bridges at Little Indian Creek and Jordan Creek, are also on the agenda for I-69 Development Partners, the group in charge of designing, building and financing Section 5, along with maintaining it for 35 years afterward.
Much of the work on the northern end of the section involves repairs rather than new construction, however.
“Because it’s an existing road that’s being upgraded, some of the existing pavement, the existing bridges are being rehabilitated or resurfaced as the road is converted to Interstate 69,” he said. “In addition, the developer’s building access roads and rehabbing bridges, building new bridges and doing the work that’s needed to take a four-lane road with traffic signals and convert it to an interstate.”
With intermittent lane closures, reduced speed limits in work areas and thousands of vehicles traveling Ind. 37 daily, construction has inevitably created some headaches for drivers. Wingfield said the state’s contract with I-69 Development Partners pushes the firm to help keep traffic moving.
“The more access the contractors have, the quicker they can get the work done,” he said. “In part for this contract, we challenged I-69 Development Partners to identify ways that minimize backups while also trying to get the work done on schedule.”
On days when heavy traffic is expected — during an Indiana University home football game, for example — construction crews avoid work that would require reducing the speed limit in a given area. When crews are present, flashing lights on signs indicate a work zone speed limit of 45 mph.
The development firm also makes sure it isn’t doing any work that would require lane closures on those days, Wingfield said, and does not schedule deliveries then, either.
“The difference between 45 and 60 mph can be significant enough that it can help move traffic on those heavy volume days,” he said. “It’s progressing very well. They’re working on a very aggressive schedule.”
Wingfield advises drivers to slow down and pay attention to their surroundings in the construction zone.
“Since this is an active work zone, (I) encourage people to look out for other drivers, to allow extra following distance in case someone stops suddenly and to look twice if they’re merging or changing lanes,” he said.
He directed drivers to I69Section5.org for information on road closures and construction updates; notices will also be published in the Reporter-Times as they are received. Wingfield also recommends utilizing the live traffic map available at TrafficWise.org.
“We have the same red, green and yellow traffic mapping that you can see on map apps, and it also has information that we put in manually about road construction and things of that nature,” he said.