Fishers celebrates opening of 146th and 131st street interchanges
FISHERS, Ind. — The City of Fishers opened its 146th and 131st street interchanges after more than a year of construction.
“Here we are several years later with a quality of life improvement in our county that’s second to none and it does not happen without the relationships and the partnerships that exist here in our community today,” the mayor of Fishers Scott Fadness said.
On Monday, community members celebrated the milestone with a ribbon cutting near 131st street, which is all part of the construction project that aims to improve traffic flow along State Road 37. That project was slated to be completed next year.
Some businesses say they are excited about the openings, especially on 146th street, where left turns were previously restricted.
“I saw a lot of agitated people just because like you couldn’t turn left onto 146th off of 37 and then you get a lot of traffic coming from Carmel and Noblesville that cross over and you couldn’t make a left turn onto 37 as well,” the owner of F45 Training North Fishers Brent Carmichael said.
Carmichael said driving around the construction was a headache for people.
“You would get back ups there a lot, so you would add almost 15 to 20 minutes on your time or the lights were too quick. It was just always something. A lot of flat tires just with all the construction,” Carmichael said.
The gym is located near 131st street where he said construction hasn’t made a big impact on business.
“Everybody especially over here was very nervous. It was like the ‘what if’…is business going to go down? Or whatever. I haven’t seen any issues, had any issues or anything like that,” Carmichael said.
Construction for the State Road 37 improvement project in Fishers began in 2019.
Work is still being done on the 135th street interchange. As for the 141st street project, that’s now on hold because inflation drove up costs. City leaders said they hope to re-bid the project next year.