By Beth Taylor
On Nov. 18, a public meeting was held at the Delaware Township Community Building in Fishers to give residents and business owners an opportunity to provide input on a proposed improvement to Ind. 37 that could change it into a limited-access highway featuring roundabout interchanges instead of traffic-signal intersections from Fishers to Noblesville.
Hamilton County Commissioners and members of the Fishers Town Council want to create a collaborative approach to dealing with traffic that will continue to worsen as the population of Hamilton County moves toward projected doubling in size by 2050.
“We have been working on finding solutions for the Ind. 37 corridor,” said Christine Altman, Hamilton County Commissioners president. “If something’s not done quickly, we will have an impossible situation in the near future. We need to figure out as elected officials and members of the community how to get this fixed.”
Altman provided scenarios that detailed ways in which the problematic corridor could be handled.
“There are three choices,” she said. “We can do nothing and the problem continues to get worse, we can take over the area locally or we can allow INDOT to maintain it and we get what they decide.”
Fishers Mayor-elect Scott Fadness understands business owners’ concerns. “We have the opportunity to be proactive and engaged. We want to talk to residents to get the best possible outcome,” said Fadness. “It’s a collaborative process to find a vision that’s befitting to Noblesville, Fishers and the entire Hamilton County community.”
A two-year study of the corridor was performed for Hamilton County, Fishers, Noblesville, INDOT and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) by United Consulting and American Structurepoint. Members from the firms presented the conceptual plan proposal. As a part of the study, multiple alternatives were studied for the corridor. The result showed a roundabout interchange at each of the existing intersections as the best option.
Altman said the next step is to perform an economic impact study. After the study is completed, talks with INDOT about relinquishing the corridor will go forward. The estimated time frame for preliminary work and engineering is three years.
