New roundabout planned for busy Greenwood intersection
GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) — Traffic backups on US 31 in Greenwood cause headaches for drivers every day, but the city is working on a plan to help alleviate problems at a major intersection.
We’re talking about Smith Valley Road where it intersects with US 31 and Madison Avenue.
The city’s planning a roundabout at Madison Avenue and a re-design at US 31 to help traffic flow more smoothly through the area.
Ben Gatlin works at Smith Valley Road and Madison Avenue and has one word to describe the traffic: terrible.
Sometimes it takes him 20 minutes just to turn into his parking lot.
“You can get to the interstate this way and also Madison is a pretty busy road and you can take that all the way to Indianapolis,” he said, “So just very busy roads right here.”
He’s excited about the idea for a roundabout instead of traffic signals.
“A lot of people won’t be running red lights and probably won’t be as many accidents right here,” Gatlin said.
That’s one benefit city engineer Mark Richards sees with the new intersection re-design.
He said the current design can be prone to traffic delays.
“The issue is the number of traffic signals at different intersections in close proximity to one another,” he said. “Operation of the roundabout would work well.”
Along with the roundabout, the intersection of US 31 and Smith Valley Road will be altered.
“There will still be traffic signals at Smith Valley and 31, however, we will eliminate left hand turns off of Smith Valley Road,” Richards said.
The city has a computer simulation of what he’s calling a “jughandle,” which will take cars in a loop from eastbound Smith Valley around to northbound US 31.
“The jughandle functions a lot like an interstate exit ramp on a cloverleaf,” he said.
He knows the public will need to be educated on how to use the new design.
“They will hold at least one public meeting at which we’ll have an education component,” he said. “There will be signage and pavement markings as well.”
The project is being paid for with a $1.9 million federal grant, along with state and city funds.
Final planning is set to wrap up next summer.
Construction could begin by next fall and be done by 2018.