INDIANAPOLIS — Arlington Avenue will close to through traffic between Pleasant Run Parkway North Drive and Washington Street starting on Dec. 1, 2024.
The work is part of the DigIndy Project with Citizens Energy.
Citizens estimates the work will take about four months to complete.
Traffic to local homes will still be allowed, but through traffic will have to take a detour. Those going south on Arlington will have to go west on Pleasant Run, south on Ritter Avenue, and then east on Washington Street back to Arlington. Those going north will go west on Washington, north on Ritter and east on Pleasant Run.
Citizens warns drivers and pedestrians to "exercise caution and follow all posted detour signage."
What is DigIndy?
The DigIndy tunnel system is designed to capture and hold sewer water each time it rains. That water is then treated at the Southport Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant before it heads to Indy's waterways.
13News toured the tunnel along Pleasant Run Creek on the city's southeast side. It's about 41,000 feet long, underneath 100 feet of soil and 170 feet more of bedrock.
"What you see here, we have about 28.6 miles of total tunnel. It stretches all the way from Southport Road on the south side to just north of the fairgrounds," Citizen Energy project lead Mike Miller said in a December 2023 interview.
The system is comprised of six tunnels in all. Each is about 20 feet wide. In all, the system is capable of holding 270 million gallons of sewage each time it rains, according to Miller.
"On average, there is about five-to-six billion gallons of sewage that are released into the river system each year," Miller said. "When this project is done, we will capture close to 97% to 99% of all of that flow."
As of December 2023, four of the six tunnels are complete. Miller said those tunnels have been capturing and treating sewer water since 2017.
