On Tuesday March 7, east side residents are getting a chance to speak with the traffic engineers who will be reworking several intersections they use everyday.
This is their one and only information session and hearing, for the Lloyd4U road plan — an Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) project which will affect four intersections in their area — and parts of the entire roadway.
See Lloyd4U website for details
Ed Green with INDOT said the overall $150 million project is for safety and efficiency — which will be achieved by modifying intersections.
“They have things like displaced left turns where the traffic makes movement to the left before it gets to the intersection, so that you don't have vehicles pulling out in front of other vehicles, or when people run red lights that they hit traffic that's in the intersection.”
These “displaced left turns” will be implemented at two intersections.
“So there's places where there's a lot of cross intersections where as the traffic goes through an intersection, what they're going to try to do is reduce the number of conflict points,” Green said. “So we have fewer accidents.”
This part of the project will cost $33 million, impacting Cross Pointe Boulevard, Burkhardt Road, Stockwell Road and Vann Avenue.
East Side Improvements
Cross Point Boulevard will receive a displaced left turn and a new traffic signal at I-69.
Burkhardt Road will receive displaced left turns.
Stockwell Road will receive a displaced left turn and boulevard U-turn.
Vann Avenue will be a right turn in, right turn out street.
INDOT held this informational session and hearing as part of the required construction process. Green said the feedback whether online or through tonight’s public comment, will be saved and addressed in the final environmental document. If need be, any changes to the plans based on feedback will be made prior to construction. Essentially, this is the final step of the planning process.
Residents on the west side of Evansville will have their own hearing this spring.
Online feedback can be shared via email: dgoffinet@lochgroup.com
Or mail at:
David Goffinet
Lochmueller Group
6200 Vogel Road,
Evansville IN, 47715
Of course Tuesday night gave residents the chance to voice concerns to the engineers directly.
“When you get this down to two lanes, how long a time is the east side going to be two lanes,” asked resident Betty Millhome. Engineers like Toby Randolph can’t address concerns here — it will be part of that final report.
Also speaking was Alexis Berggren, president and CEO of Visit Evansville. “We know that through various means of data collection, that the east side of Evansville is the most frequently visited area of our entire region,” she said. “In fact, last year alone 53.6-percent of all visitors to a four county area were on the east side for retail purposes.”
She was concerned that there wasn’t a plan for walkability or bikability — which could hurt tourism.
For Randy Eades who works on the corner of Vann and the Lloyd, it’s about losing the left heading west from Vann. He wonders where all that traffic’s going to go.
“Where are they going to take these people? There's four baseball fields right there. There's eight soccer fields, their state hospital grounds.”
Toby Randolph is a traffic engineer for Parsons Corporation. He said this was the best solution for improving safety at the intersection.
“People are gonna find a different way to go,” he said. “And it will be an adjustment at first but most traffic patterns when they change, it takes some time to work itself out. But we don't anticipate any problems in the future.”
He says most motorists are aware of the congestion that exists along the Lloyd Expressway.
“Most people want a bigger, grade-separated expressway, which is just not cost effective through this area,” Randolph said. “So that's why we've evaluated it and done the traffic analysis and come up with these improvements that are at a lower cost for the state, and be able to implement quicker than a grade separation.”
He said they studied crashes and made traffic models that extend 20 years into the future.
He said his group engineered a displaced left turn in Indianapolis on US 31 south of 465.
Ideally, construction will begin spring of 2024.
West Side Improvements
There are several intersections west of Wabash Avenue to receive modifications — including pavement and bridge replacement.
University Parkway, Rosenberger Avenue, St. Joseph Avenue and Wabash Avenue will receive “minor intersection improvements.”
Major intersection improvements will happen at McDowell, Schutte, Red Bank and Boehne Camp Roads along with Barker Avenue Interchange.