Scott Sandstrom, a representative with CDM Smith, updated the Argos Town Council at its latest meeting regarding the ProPEL US30 West Study.
“As a refresher, the ProPEL Study includes about 180 miles of US30 and US31. US30 West Study, which our team’s been working on, is on US 30 from State Road 49 to West Beech Road in Marshall County. And then South on 31 to County Road 700 in Fulton County,” said Sandstorm.
As part of the process, according to Sandstrom, the Study Team has been engaging the public. The study process lasts for two years and the feedback received is vital to the success of the study and to help inform the future of transportation investments for the corridors.
“We don’t anticipate that the ProPEL study will identify or recommend a single build alternative. The studies we create are a responsible set of alternatives that could move forward as part of INDOTs regular call for projects which typically is a five year time,” said Scott.
This project began back in 2022. Now they have reached the level 3 analysis. Sandstrom states that they plan to finish the study in early 2025.
“We plan to finish the study early next year, but with the publication it looks to be a final study report. There won’t be any projects, per se. It’s just the end of the study phase,” Sandstrom said.
The first phase included looking at alternatives. Those were narrowed down based on the transportation needs. In the second phase, the study looked at primary intersections. There were 29 of those in the study. They looked at the implications of solutions at each primary intersection.
“Now in level three, we’re taking the primary intersections from level two adding in the rest of the intersections and also looking at facility types to see what can be done between all the intersections,” he said.
He went on to say that the screening process for level three began with defining planning segments and then looked at improved packages or alternatives. Those were evaluated and came up with a rating for each. Those ratings were published with the draft report.
Touching on access management principles, Sandstrom had this to say. “We brought in the secondary intersections and also when the time came to interchanges, particularly in rural areas, INDOT prefers to have at least three miles of spacing between those,” he said.
He said that US 30 and US 31 are classified as major arterial roadways. “Major arterial typically has more mobility and less access than other facility types. Also, not as much in this area, there are some though, there’s a lot of driveways along the corridor. Many of which don’t meet INDOT’s access management guidelines. So while we do realize their drives are important for accessing, they do sometimes impact safety and operations of the roadway.”
He said that the challenge is to provide safety improvements along the corridor. “So, the challenge is to provide safety improvements along the corridor, which sometimes would reduce or eliminate access while still providing access that meets the needs of the corridor to and across the corridor.”
Next, the study looked at improved packages. In evaluating that, they looked at safety, mobility, costs and environmental constraints.
“Lastly for the evaluation portion, we looked at the study goals and these study goals were resolved in public feedback early on in the study, the purpose in each stage. We might have had a public meeting in Argos actually at that time,” he said.
After the evaluation, the study looked to assign a rating to all the packages. Sandstrom stated that there were three ratings that could be applied to each. Some of the packages were eliminated. Sandstrom said that if the package was eliminated, then it meant that it was considered unreasonable compared to the other packages due to limited benefits, compared to the impacts and costs, and it likely didn’t warrant more consideration. Some packages were carried forward, which meant that in comparison to the others, the package was considered to have marginal benefits. Those packaged would be considered in future studies, but would require further analysis. Recommended packages are the best from the planning segment.
“So recommended packages likely warrant consideration as part of these studies or projects,” he said. “But at this time, no decisions have been made about the future of US 31 or 30 within the study area, and no projects related to the PEL study had been funded by INDOT,” Sandstrom said.
He did recognize another segment that is called South Argos. That segment is near State Road 10.
“So that is a separate project that INDOT is doing so we have not been considering that as part of our PEL study because they’re going through the actual project development process now with community advisory and committee meetings and eventually on public meetings,” Sandstrom said.
For more information about the study, Sandstrom advises people to visit www.propelus30.com. The public comment portion ended on Friday, Dec. 13, but Sandstrom stated that you could still submit comments after that date.
