With plans in the works to upgrade U.S. 30 to freeway standards, efforts are underway locally to make sure the project would have a positive on Starke County.
One concern is figuring out how traffic may reach the Town of Hamlet, depending on the placement of interchanges. The Starke County Highway Department and the Starke County Economic Development Foundation recently split the cost of assessing County Road 500 North as a potential alternate route.
Highway Superintendent Rik Ritzler told the county commissioners Monday they’ve decided to expand their study to Old U.S. 30 and 600 North. “The assessments were really not that expensive,” he explained. “It’s was a pretty good cost-sharing thing. Economic Development agreed to share the cost. We do have it in out budget for next year, which is when we’ll be paying for it. So we could do that without asking for any extra money.”
Under the freeway proposal, drivers would only be able to get on U.S. 30 at interchanges and would only be able to cross the highway by using an overpass. Ritzler said he plans to start developing plans about where those might be located. “I also propose that once we get all our traffic counts done, to have the engineer look at this and kind of do an assessment for each one of the overpasses and interchanges that may happen at U.S. 30,” he said. “Basically, every intersection of U.S. 30, we want to do a study and see if it warrants one. If we have that information up front before INDOT does anything with it, it is really helpful to us.”
The Indiana Department of Transportation would have the final say on how the upgrades will take shape. But consultants working with the U.S. 30 Coalition say INDOT will likely listen to local recommendations, if there’s a strong local consensus.
