RICHMOND, IN — The city’s redevelopment commission allocated more than $150,000 to support a study and redesign for an intersection in the Depot District on Tuesday, Sept. 16.
The intersection, connecting North D, North Sixth and North Seventh streets and Fort Wayne Avenue, Director of Strategic Initiatives Beth Fields said, has received feedback from bike riders and families who they don’t feel as if there’s a safe way for them to travel from Cardinal Greenway to the Depot District.
“That intersection that we have there can present some challenges,” Fields said. “This project is to allow us to survey, study and redesign that intersection so that it’s more efficient, as well as connect that intersection directly to the North D Street Cardinal Greenway.”
Fields added that the study will address whether all of the ramps in the area are up to the current standards, although they are all ADA accessible.
“If you’ll recall, on U.S. 40, they came in and they did all of the ramps, and then the very next year they redid them because the standard changed, and so therefore they had to go back and change that work,” Fields said. “This is going to allow us to bring that current as well as all of the lighting and the signals that are in that area are at the end of life and are needed to be upgraded as well.”
Multiple tasks had been proposed for the project, but Fields said the money set to be allocated, and unaninimously approved later in the meeting for up to $153,100 would pay for the first four tasks.
“This is the survey of the area, the design, the utility coordination and the preparation of bid documents,” she said. “A difference between this one and the first project that was approved is at the end of this project, we will have bid documents that we can put out to bid and go ahead and construct the project. The last two tasks with the construction phasing services and construction inspection, those are things that we’ll move forward when we go to bid the project.”
Clark Dietz, an engineering firm in Indianapolis, was selected for the project, Fields said, because of its work with the city the past 10 years with the Cardinal Greenway Trail Connector with the Loop project at the U.S. 27 bridge.
“They are very familiar with this project and will be able to come in and not have that learning curve that another company would have because they’ve already been involved in the community,” Fields said. “They already have connections with the stakeholder groups, so we feel that they would be the best company to move this process forward.”
Jake Phillips, Central Indiana area manager for Clark Dietz, said the current intersection in the Depot District is confusing and that the project would clean it up and make it more accessible.
“The standards of ADA ramps is is an ongoing challenge with every community and so that would be addressed during this as well, making that compliant with the current standard,” Phillips said. “Things like upgrading the lights, even when we were walking through the the intersection a month or so ago, I realized how difficult it is to see, even as a pedestrian standing there, some of those lights, whether they’re red or green. Bringing those up to standards with LEDs is going to make it not only much safer, but just more functional for the community.”
Phillips said connecting the Cardinal Greenway to the Depot District was not an original part of the project, but that it makes sense to connect it.
“When we were actually out walking the project trying to figure out where that trail might go, we saw several people on bikes zipping through there and you could tell they all have developed their own kind of routes,” he said. “You know that may still happen, but channelizing it and making it safer and marking it for them is ultimately a good thing for anybody who uses the the trail as well as inviting more people to use it and feel safer about it.”
Phillips said the rough development time is six months from approval.
Evan Weaver is a news and sports reporter at The Palladium-Item. Contact him on X (@evan_weaver7) or email at eweaver@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: Depot District intersection to get makeover after Richmond commission’s approval
Reporting by Evan Weaver, Richmond Palladium-Item / Richmond Palladium-Item
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
