By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW – There’s no final plan or design for a US 30 freeway through Kosciusko County, but about a dozen Warsaw residents from the neighborhoods around Menards approached the Common Council Monday night, Aug. 15, concerned about plans for the Parker Street intersection.

A flyer handed out to the Council says the US 30 Coalition and city of Warsaw are approaching the final planning stages to U.S. 30, making it a limited access highway. While this has some benefits, the flyer states, the “current proposal dramatically impacts our specific neighborhoods and households.” The flyer has a picture claiming to highlight the “current proposal,” including the Parker Street access to US 30 at the current intersection “will be turned into an underpass, making it impossible to get off or on to US 30 near the Menards shopping complex.” 

Cassidy Topel said she is friends with Nathan Reeder who recently came to her and her husband about the plans for Parker Street and US 30 and asked them if they knew about it. 

“He put together a petition. It’s over 130 (signatures) today and I started passing out the petition in our neighborhood just Saturday at noon,” Topel said. “The reaction has been pretty much consistent of just shock.”

She said they know the community is growing, but if US 30 is cut off from the Menards “complex,” the new pathway for traffic, including delivery trucks, might be through over five neighborhood access roads. 

“In our neighborhoods alone, I’ve talked to over 250 people. Everyone was feeling like, ‘Yes, we know we’re progressing, but there’s no way that we anticipated that our access roads would turn into an on-ramp and off-ramp for US 30,’ and when there is no other potential access and we’re already dealing with significantly increased traffic,” she said.

Sometimes, Topel said, people can not get onto their main streets for 10 minutes because of traffic. She also pointed out that two new neighborhoods are going in. 

“And, again, that’s all understandable. We’re growing as a community. But to be the only on-ramp and off-ramp access for five neighborhoods that are already feeling the stress of our growth, felt very upsetting, so a lot of people felt it couldn’t be possible and then they looked into it or talked to people and realized that this is the plan that has been drafted up and being submitted for review,” she said, adding that it felt like it couldn’t be a viable plan. 

Looking back at articles about the past public meetings on US 30, Topel said not one person in their neighborhood knew about those meetings. 

“I guess there’s a feeling of wanting to express how dangerous we perceive this on-ramp, off-ramp situation,” she said. 

Topel mentioned the number of semis daily going to Menards, people going to shop at Menards and other vehicles that would be driving through the neighborhoods in that area. “The amount of traffic seems inconceivable to our residents and to the people that live on these streets because we’re already feeling the burden. And so we’re just respectfully concerned because it sounds like there’s been many approval processes. Nobody – in all five neighborhoods that I’ve encountered – has known that,” she said. 

She said the concern is that a lot of neighborhoods would be put in danger, and it was “shocking” that this was the plan the community was moving forward with. 

Mayor Joe Thallemer assured her there is no plan or design at this point. 

“First of all, there’s been no plan decided,” he stated. “The city is not designing this project – it will be designed and engineered by INDOT (Indiana Department of Transportation).”

Thallemer explained what took place at the prior “very large, well-attended” public meetings. During the first of the three meetings, people didn’t want a southern bypass; at the second one, the people didn’t want a northern bypass. 

“The drawings were just to see if keeping a freeway along the current corridor was possible. There was no design of frontage roads. There was no design of really those intersections. In fact, the Parker Street interchange actually showed either an overpass or interchange. They’re both in there. So, no one has made any kind of decision on that,” Thallemer said.

He said they’ve probably had 20 stakeholder meetings with folks along the road that have vested interest, but all those meetings were open to the public. “They were primarily residential folks that came to our public meetings,” he said.

Thallemer talked to the INDOT commissioner on Monday, he said, and the Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study is the first phase of US 30. 

“They’re going to come in and they’re going to look at going north, they’re going to look at going south, they’re going to look at everything. And, they’re going to look at doing nothing. The study will probably take two years,” he said.

When the city talks to INDOT about U.S. 30, Thallemer said they’re going to tell them they had two to three years of meetings with stakeholders and that, from the large public meetings that were held, it “appears that staying on the current route is what the preference is in our community. Period. No detail.”

Topel asked if that included “the current route of making an overpass and no access to U.S. 30?” Thallemer said he didn’t say that, he said just staying on the corridor and not going north or south with a bypass. 

A design concept was presented at the last (Nov. 16) meeting but there were no details. “We were very specific to tell folks that these details are nothing more than a draft design to see if those improvements could stay along the freeway, along the existing corridor,” he said.

The U.S. 30 project is being proposed from the Ohio/Indiana line to SR 49 and every community US 30 goes through is having these discussions, Thallemer said. 

“We don’t know what’s going to happen. When INDOT comes in to do the PEL, a big part of that study is public listening, understanding what people want, what they don’t want. And, neighborhoods, businesses, emergency services, schools, fire departments, ambulance services, every stakeholder in the community will have something to say. And we want to encourage the concerns and problems and issues that you have to be shared with the engineer and INDOT when these public listening sessions start. They will be run and moderated by INDOT and the engineering firm,” Thallemer said. 

Those public listening sessions will be countywide and well advertised, he said.

The disappointing thing to him, Thallemer said, was that he thought the sessions were going to start this past spring. However, because it is a very large project, INDOT apparently had some problems with contracts. They’re also going to be looking at US 31 as well as US 30.

“They’re finally at the point where these contracts are signed. The PEL has started. We will be meeting with the engineers and INDOT and explain exactly what I told you, that it appears that staying on route on the current corridor makes the most sense. How we do that, that’s why they’re here,” Thallemer said. 

After INDOT decides whatever their decision is, the next phase is a federal environmental study because that’s required to get funded and get a designation number, he said. “Again, not really much engineering is going on up to that point. After that happens, then there’s some preliminary engineering that will be looking at these different interchanges,” he said. 

He reiterated that public comments will be taken during the PEL process, that there’s no final plan, the city didn’t do any engineering and there’s no design work done. The PEL process can take 18 to 24 months and Thallemer encouraged the community to speak at the listening sessions when they’re announced.