The proposed upgrade of U.S. 30 to freeway standards was discussed with Marshall County residents Tuesday. The project would remove stoplights and at-grade intersections. Instead, the only way to get across U.S. 30 would be at an overpass, and the only way to get on would be at an interchange.
To help push for the upgrades, leaders from Marshall and five other counties have formed a U.S. 30 Coalition. They’ve been working with transportation consultant Dennis Faulkenberg to help make sure the Indiana Department of Transportation takes local communities’ needs into account. “My prediction with my 30 years in this business is it’s going to become a freeway, and you ought to get involved in how it becomes a freeway, as that is surely going to happen,” Faulkenberg said. “Why is that going to happen? It’s because of what’s happening out on that road with the traffic that’s there, the accident history and so forth, the truck volumes.”
A big concern is safety. James Turnwald with the Michiana Area Council of Governments said that between 2014 and 2016, U.S. 30 saw almost 400 crashes in Marshall County alone. “And 101 people had been injured,” he added. “That could be severe injury, incapacitating injury, to minor, kind of neck-injury-based. During that time-frame, in 2014, there was also a fatality.”
Marshall County Commissioner Mike Delp spoke in support of the freeway proposal, noting that the county has seen the benefits of previous upgrades. “I was a little kid and I’m sure many of you remember when 30 and 31 got changed to a four-lane,” he said. “Can you even imagine if we never did anything and no progress? And certainly, people were upset at that time that it happened, and I get there’s going to be some inconveniences. But I mean, do you even want to think about what we’d have if we had 30 and 31 going through Plymouth on a two-lane road? It just wouldn’t work. Progress happens.”
Not all those in attendance Tuesday agreed. “I mean, I think it’s great and wonderful about progress in urban areas. I don’t live in an urban area,” one audience member said. “I didn’t buy a house in an urban area. I bought it in a rural spot so I didn’t have to deal with this.”
Residents were also concerned that the freeway idea wouldn’t solve the root cause of the safety issue: truck drivers and others who simply drive too fast. Others were concerned about access to businesses along U.S. 30 and whether a bypass should be built around Plymouth, rather than building the freeway in U.S. 30’s current location.
Faulkenberg predicted that U.S. 30 would stay where it is, since there’s enough room. Turnwald added that INDOT standards typically limit the number of interchanges to one per mile in populated areas.
One of the next steps will be to put together a group of local stakeholders, such as government officials, farmers, business owners, and emergency responders who’ll make some recommendations. Faulkenberg said that may help discourage INDOT from putting cheap bandaid solutions in place, like the J-turn intersections that had been proposed for U.S. 31. In Starke County, a local committee has already met a couple of times since last fall.
However, Faulkenberg stressed that in the end, the final decisions will be up to INDOT, and that any freeway project is still probably five to 10 years away.
