INDIANAPOLIS — Summer is construction season on Indiana roads.
INDOT is talking about its plan for not just this year, but its plan for the interstates within the I-465 loop decades from now.
INDOT has been studying the conditions of I-65 and I-70 inside the loop and what can be done to bring those interstates up to speed as Indianapolis continues to grow.
It's all part of a two-year study looking at changes to interstates that INDOT says are 40 years old and will eventually need replaced or rehabbed.
INDOT has spent the past year asking people who use the interstates and those who live off of them or have a business to weigh in about what needs to be addressed.
INDOT says it got 1,100 comments from several hundred respondents about how to modernize the interstates within the loop.
According to INDOT, Dallas did a similar study to update its infrastructure as the city continued to grow.
It says Indianapolis and surrounding suburbs are also growing and with that comes more traffic on the interstates.
"We use traffic modeling to predict what future traffic counts could look like. In terms of congestion, some modeling does predict that getting worse if things stay as is,” INDOT spokesperson Natalie Garrett said.
Just like anything that gets a lot of use, Garrett said Indiana's interstates get worn out, too.
"There does come a time where things have to be replaced and require more major rehabilitation work,” Garrett said. "We're engaging the public earlier in the planning process to hear what they need, what they want, what concerns they have — and then looking at those different alternatives and how we can address them."
Among the issues people told INDOT they were concerned about: bridges and pavement that need to be replaced.
"Ones that are near the end of their service life,” Garrett said.
Roadway safety and design also came up.
According to INDOT, from 2018 to 2022, there were 10,500 crashes in the study area. Seven percent of those crashes resulted in fatal or incapacitating injuries.
The study also found gaps in pedestrian and cycling infrastructure near the interstates.
"We'll take a look at the data and what we're hearing from people and kind of match them together to help create priorities,” Garrett said.
According to Garrett, it’s still too early to tell if the footprint of I-65 and I-70 will change or how that could impact neighborhoods nearby.
What's also too early to tell is how much it all could cost.
Don't expect to see the work start anytime soon. The study won't be finished until next spring.
INDOT says the earliest construction would start would be in five years and last over two decades.
INDOT says you can find the results of phase 1 of the study on its website.
There will also be meetings over the next two months where the public can give more input.