Text and Photos
By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — If US 30 doesn’t become a freeway, it could not only mean the loss of jobs and economic growth for the seven Indiana counties along the corridor, but also more lives lost from accidents.

That message was made clear during three panels of discussion at the US 30 Summit at Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion in Warsaw on Wednesday, July 17, hosted by the U.S. 30 Coalition.

Invited guests ranged from mayors and city and county officials to state representatives and senators, Congressional candidate Marlin Stutzman, along with Democrat candidate for governor Jennifer McCormick and a representative of US Senator and Republican governor candidate Mike Braun. Braun is attending the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin.

“The idea was to get our legislatures together, all of our community partners across the coalition, our industry partners across the coalition and basically bring the candidates for the next administration together,” Coalition Executive Director and former Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer explained afterward. “I think there’s no question we wanted a chance to sit down and explain the project, talk about the need and, basically, advocate for support from the next administration. I think that’s the primary reason we’re here.”

The three panels at the two-hour summit included one for the US 30 Coalition, one of economic development leaders and the third was elected officials.
US 30 Coalition

David Long, former state senator, moderated the US 30 Coalition panel. “On behalf of the entire US 30 Coalition, in support of this effort to turn US 30 into a freeway, we’re very grateful that you’re here today to hear this message,” he said. “It’s our hope that by the end of today’s gathering that everyone in this room — who doesn’t have it yet — will leave with a little fire in their belly over this project and supports turning US 30 into a seamless freeway from Fort Wayne to Valparaiso.”

Indiana is the most intensive manufacturing state per capita in the country, Long said. US 30 is the most intensive manufacturing corridor in the state.

“It’s full of some of Indiana’s most important companies. They are vibrant, growing entities that depend upon US 30 to safely and effectively move their products to marketplace,” he said. “From each of these companies you will hear on the theme, which is, we need to get US 30 modernized to allow our businesses to grow and prosper.”

Just as critical as the economic development aspect of the effort is the parallel need for safety measure improvements, he said.

“US 30 experiences a serious accident nearly every single day along the corridor,” Long stated, adding it’s one of the most unsafe roads in the entire state.

Thallemer offered a brief history, membership and actions of the coalition.
He said the coalition incorporated in 2016, but he and Columbia City Mayor Ryan Daniel began discussing US 30 in 2012 during their first terms. The 20-member coalition, representing seven counties, started meeting in Warsaw because it was centrally located. Since about 2020, they meet about every six to eight weeks as needed.

“The whole point about our preliminary discussion here is we want everyone to know, before the governor approved the PEL (Planning and Environmental Linkages) study, how much work has been done. The PEL study started in 2022, so we had a good six to eight years of grassroots (work),” Thallemer said.

Daniel got involved in the coalition after learning the state was going to make Columbia City the home of five to six J-turns and an interchange along US 30 without really talking to anyone impacted by those plans. Those plans got cancelled.

Panelist Laurie Maudlin, consultant with Appian, said they’ve been working on the state and federal side of the US 30 project since the very beginning. “This project has more support behind it than any project I’ve worked on,” she said.

“Your legislative delegation is completely on board with this, and, more than that, they’re willing to stand up and say, ‘We need to get this done.’ We’ve been briefing them on the project since day one and letting them know kind of where things stand.”

After Daniel talked about what they did in Whitley County, Thallemer discussed the steps that Warsaw and Kosciusko County took, which included public meetings.

“We’re anticipating an INDOT (Indiana Department of Transportation) final report by the end of the year, and we’ve spent six, seven, eight years in the community knowing that each community has its own set of challenges. Each of the seven counties attends the meetings every six weeks, but they know when they go, they’re going to have to speak to their councils, their county, anyone along 30, the landowners, the retail, industry impacted by this problem,” Thallemer said.

The city of Warsaw wants the freeway to stay along the existing corridor as it has plenty of space, he said, and the community said “very clearly” that they wanted it to stay on the corridor.

The final result of the PEL study will probably have alternatives for certain segments of the road, he predicted. “The important thing is that we have showed them (INDOT) that this is what we want. Laurie told us time and time again, don’t wait for them to come tell you what they’re going to do. You have to be ready as a community,” Thallemer said.

Daniel said if the US 30 corridor is moved to a freeway, “It will transform northern Indiana. By INDOT’s own members, Blue Ribbon Panel members, the traffic on US 30, with a freeway, will go from 20,000 vehicles a day to 80,000 vehicles a day in 20 years. Twenty years!”

Maudlin talked about three different INDOT studies that identified US 30 as a major corridor that needs improved. One study from 2014 labeled US 30 a tier 2 project, which meant it needed to be done as soon as the interstate expansion projects were finished.

“They found — this was back in 2014 — that if you improved US 30, you would have 323 fewer accidents and — this number astounds me — per day, 18,000 hours of delay would be saved,” she said.

Another study found US 30 was a top project to “strengthen the logistics segment within Indiana.”

A 2009 BioCrossroads study identified the transportation challenges facing the orthopedic industry and how they needed to be solved to strengthen the industry. Simultaneously, there was a four-state study done from Iowa to Ohio along US 30 that found there was 127,000 freight-producing industries along US. 30 and the counties surrounding that, she said.

INDOT has proceeded with some Allen County projects outside of the PEL study, but they are part of the larger corridor project, Maudlin said. Some of those projects will begin in 2025 and go into 2026.

After talking about how the PEL study has been done, Thallemer discussed how crashes affect local mobility. Michiana Area Council of Governments did an origin and destination study for Warsaw, and at certain times of the day, 49% of the traffic was local.

Based on five years of crash data, Thallemer said, “Somewhere along the 58-mile length of US 30 East, we experience 1.5 crashes per day. If you go out on 30, there’s a 73% (chance) of a crash on a given day. So, not only congestion in the crashes, but the reliability of the road gets called into question.”

Maudlin said currently truck traffic is about 31% of all the traffic on US 30, and it’s increasing exponentially.

Economic Development

The economic development panel was moderated by Dan Brown, a business member of the coalition. The panel included Ivan Tornos, Zimmer Biomet CEO; Chris Graham, senior vice president of Steel Dynamics; and Bill Konyha, president and CEO of the 11-county Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana.

Brown said there’s 30,000 vehicles a day on US 30, with 30% of those trucks.

“As you think about them rolling down the road between Valpo and Fort Wayne, there’s 44 stoplights, 112 at-grade intersections, 321 driveway cuts … this is in 125 miles. There’s only seven interchanges, and there’s still two at-grade railroad crossings,” he said.

Konyha said total employment in the region by place of employment is 501,637.

Total workforce is 398,994, with over 100,000 people a day coming into Northeast Indiana from other regions in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio to go to work in Northeast Indiana. Of the total employment of the workforce, he said 180,925 are engaged in manufacturing.

“For us this is really critical. Manufacturing is what we do,” Konyha stated. “It’s what we do better than anybody, and that’s evidenced by the fact that Northeast Indiana is the most manufacturing intensive region in the state; and Congressional District 2 and 3 is the most manufacturing congressional districts in the United States.”

The manufacturing wage totals $8,539,002,002. The average wage per job is $87,911, with the per capita personal income being $58,323.

“One significant piece of that is that we pay, in Northeast Indiana, $260,439,000 of state income taxes, and that’s off the manufacturing base. That translates into $2,681.29 per manufacturing job, and it’s a critical note that it’s not just our manufacturers, our business community, our commerce that contributes to this, especially from the state. Our businesses have a supply chain extending throughout Indiana, into Michigan, into Illinois, into Ohio and US 30 is active in all of those, so it contributes to trucks coming in as well as leaving. It’s critical to the success of our supply chain,” Konyha said.

On US 30’s impact on Zimmer Biomet, Tornos said, “We need to get a freeway that is safe and efficient. We must get US 30 resolved. Lives and jobs are at risk.”

He reminded everyone that Zimmer Biomet is one of the largest employers in Indiana. In Warsaw, the Fortune 500 global company employs one in every three residents. Zimmer Biomet has 20,000 direct employees and 60,000 altogether (direct and indirect) and does business in 125 countries.

“We go in and out of Warsaw each and every day, and, yes, US 30 is the main corridor,” Tornos said.

Company employees put their lives at risk when they travel US 30 to get to work, but many are choosing to work from home. “Many of them have actually opted out of working at a place like Zimmer Biomet because of road conditions,” he said. “We’ve got to get this resolved.”

Tornos said he met with Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb recently and asked him for just one thing. “In exchange for our commitment to remain here in Warsaw, Indiana, the global capital of orthopedics, and that is to resolve US 30.” He said he and Holcomb were going to meet again at noon Thursday to talk specifically about US 30.

“We want to be in Warsaw, Indiana, for the next 800 years … but we can not make the commitment to be here long term if we don’t resolve this. One of every three employees in our company needs that road (to get to) work,” he stated.

Zimmer Biomet does $8 billion in revenue, over $1 billion in production out of the Warsaw West factory, impacts the state by about $100 billion and Warsaw directly by about $70-$100 million.

“All of that is at risk … if we don’t solve US 30. I can not compromise the safety of my employees. I can not commit to staying in Warsaw, Indiana, for the long term if this road does not get fixed,” Tornos stated.

Graham said Steel Dynamics, headquartered in Fort Wayne, is the third biggest steelmaker in the United States.

“We have an opinion — and I think it should be weighed heavily — from a company that wants to grow here, but to be honest, it’s not likely to grow here unless these things are addressed,” he stated.

Steel Dynamics recently committed almost a $3 billion facility in Columbus, Miss., for an aluminum plant.

“We did not consider this area. You didn’t know about it. Three billion dollars. We look at infrastructure. We look at transportation. We look at power, we look at things, and so you won’t hear about the thing. We look at the 70 miles between Warsaw and Valparaiso and we look at that and go, ‘You put a freeway in there and you do it right, that will be full for our kids. This corridor will be used more,” Graham said, adding that safety is very important.

Steel Dynamics isn’t going to be able to invest much more here until certain things are made right, he said.

Elected Officials

The last panel was moderated by State Rep. Craig Snow. Panelists included Kosciusko County Commissioner Cary Groninger, State Rep. David Heine and Starke County Commissioner Mark Gourley.

Snow said US 30 is a critical project.

“I look at it from an economic development standpoint, from a jobs perspective, the safety of our constituents as well,” he said. “It is just infuriating to me that we just have to move so slowly on these things. Funding is a big issue, you’ll hear that all the time. It is a big job. We’re trying to advocate for this in a way that makes sense, and try to get people to pull in the same direction.”

Groninger said from an economic perspective, “US 30 is a lifeblood for Kosciusko County here, and northern Indiana when it comes to transportation logistics. We heard today how important manufacturing is in our region. We’re really good at making stuff. This area is just incredible with the different things that are made here. … If we want Kosciusko County and Northern Indiana to continue to prosper, we’ve got to turn US 30 into a freeway.”

Heine said if US 30 isn’t turned into a freeway, “we can’t survive.” The project will cost a lot of money, and Indiana needs its next governor to want US 30 to be a freeway, he said.

On safety concerns, Groninger said US 30 stretches for 23 miles in Kosciusko County. From 2019 to the first quarter of 2024, “we’ve had 31 fatalities or serious injury crashes in our 23 miles of road here in Kosciusko County. So think about that. Every other month, someone is either dying or has a serious injury that changes their life in Kosciusko County.”

Gourley discussed the two people he’s known who were killed years apart on US 30. “This is costing lives and will continue to cost lives if we don’t do it right. It will cost jobs. It will cost other economic resources that will ultimately kill some of our smaller communities.”

Before a question-and-answer session, candidates for governor were given an opportunity to speak.

McCormick stated she was a champion for the project and didn’t need convincing.

“I am there with you,” she said. “… I understand the need for this. I understand the economic impact. I understand the safety. When I am elected, I am going to be excited to be a partner with you to get this done.”

Adam Battalio, with Braun’s office, expressed Braun’s support for the project.