NEW PALESTINE — The road improvement project at the busiest intersection in New Palestine is well under way and is expected to last until at least mid-August.
The $1.4 million expansion at U.S. 52 and County Road 500W is being done by the Indiana Department of Transportation and officially started in early April. The project calls for widening the intersection’s four corners. The work will create new turn lanes and add sidewalks, handicap-accessible ramps and a new traffic signal.
The intersection will remain open during construction, but traffic will be restricted.
“What they’re doing is making the lanes smaller during the project, but people will still have access to the intersection while we do our construction work,” said Mallory Duncan, spokeswoman for INDOT’s Greenfield district.
The four corners of the intersection will get a face lift, one corner at a time, with each section taking about a month to complete. Workers are constructing the southeast corner first. Depending on weather, that timetable will take the project into mid-August.
Travelers are already having to deal with U.S. 52 being closed between County Roads 600W and 550W in both directions while workers replace the bridge over West Little Sugar Creek. That closure is expected to last until mid-June.
“We’re pleased to have both these projects going on in New Palestine,” Duncan said. “But our biggest thing is keeping everyone safe and keeping mobility in place.”
The intersection expansion has been a long time coming for town officials, who were promised an intersection update by INDOT when U.S. 52 through the town was widened over 10 years ago. Funding for the work dried up back then, and officials have had to wait until money became available to get the project back on the books.
Steve Pool, a town employee who is the project coordinator for the town, said the intersection widening will be a great improvement. Major backups develop with County Road 500W, also known as Gem Road, being the main feeder road onto U.S. 52 for all the Southern Hancock school buses and students coming and going.
“With the addition of the turn lanes and everything else, it’s going to be a great improvement,” Pool said.
Jim Robinson, the acting town manager, is thrilled to see the expansion finally happen. But he wonders whether the improvements will keep up with the traffic.
“I think it will appease us for a little while because with the growth that we’re seeing right now, I think its use will be short-lived,” Robinson said.
He wants the state to assess traffic on U.S. 52 from County Roads 500W to 600W. Robinson said traffic volume already justifies adding at least one lane in that busy stretch.
“I hope when the intersection is done, they come back out and revisit that hot spot, because that’s a tough stretch of road with the McDonald’s, a gas station and the post office,” Robinson said. “It’s really congested with just the two lanes.”
With the addition of the new Hancock County Public Library branch; the Woodland Terrace senior living complex; and a new Hancock Health medical center, U.S. 52 on the west end of town will need a redo, Robinson said.
“When school is in session, we see such a bottleneck in the mornings almost a half mile back,” Robinson said.
While he thinks the intersection expansion will alleviate some of that backup and calls it a good starting point, town officials are afraid the issues with traffic to the west will now become more magnified.
It’s why he’s hopeful the bridge work now being done will be able to accommodate any type of road widening work that may come in the future.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Robinson said.
