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IN-IL: New Harmony Bridge

Started by mukade, October 27, 2011, 10:28:23 PM

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silverback1065

Quote from: edwaleni on June 20, 2021, 11:49:13 PM
Thanks to some links sent to me I did some historical research on this bridge.

There have been several bills in the Indiana Legislature to fund the remediation of this bridge or to buy it outright since the 1960's.

Many of those bills never got out of committee, but the few that did and actually got onto the floor were always blocked by a political contingent led by Indianapolis.

When SW Indiana legislators would get a infrastructure bill on the floor, anything that included the New Harmony Bridge was immediately blocked.

Because of this and all of the delays in getting a better highway built between Indy and Evansville, it has fostered this posture by those who live in the area that there is some kind of grudge against economic development in SW Indiana.

Yes, they got the Toyota plant in Princeton, but it took this herculean effort by Mitch Daniels to "get it done" on I-69. There were people still trying to block it way back when.

This and New Harmony just sends a vibe that people in the area just don't get the same level of importance to the greater whole of Indiana.

IDOT who now owns the "Cannonball Bridge" between St Francisville and Indiana, gets immediate cooperation from Indiana when looking at a replacement to that 1 lane former railroad bridge.

But when it comes to the New Harmony Bridge, Indiana doesn't want to have anything to do with it legislatively. It's an interesting irony.

They're going to replace that weird Cannonball Bridge? Does anyone actually use it?!  :-D


edwaleni

Quote from: silverback1065 on June 20, 2021, 11:57:11 PM
Quote from: edwaleni on June 20, 2021, 11:49:13 PM
Thanks to some links sent to me I did some historical research on this bridge.

There have been several bills in the Indiana Legislature to fund the remediation of this bridge or to buy it outright since the 1960's.

Many of those bills never got out of committee, but the few that did and actually got onto the floor were always blocked by a political contingent led by Indianapolis.

When SW Indiana legislators would get a infrastructure bill on the floor, anything that included the New Harmony Bridge was immediately blocked.

Because of this and all of the delays in getting a better highway built between Indy and Evansville, it has fostered this posture by those who live in the area that there is some kind of grudge against economic development in SW Indiana.

Yes, they got the Toyota plant in Princeton, but it took this herculean effort by Mitch Daniels to "get it done" on I-69. There were people still trying to block it way back when.

This and New Harmony just sends a vibe that people in the area just don't get the same level of importance to the greater whole of Indiana.

IDOT who now owns the "Cannonball Bridge" between St Francisville and Indiana, gets immediate cooperation from Indiana when looking at a replacement to that 1 lane former railroad bridge.

But when it comes to the New Harmony Bridge, Indiana doesn't want to have anything to do with it legislatively. It's an interesting irony.

They're going to replace that weird Cannonball Bridge? Does anyone actually use it?!  :-D

Yes sir. IDOT tracks the volume on their bridge reports now.

There is some movement to start putting funding together to keep it sustainable until a replacement can be put together.

silverback1065

Quote from: edwaleni on June 21, 2021, 01:14:36 AM
Quote from: silverback1065 on June 20, 2021, 11:57:11 PM
Quote from: edwaleni on June 20, 2021, 11:49:13 PM
Thanks to some links sent to me I did some historical research on this bridge.

There have been several bills in the Indiana Legislature to fund the remediation of this bridge or to buy it outright since the 1960's.

Many of those bills never got out of committee, but the few that did and actually got onto the floor were always blocked by a political contingent led by Indianapolis.

When SW Indiana legislators would get a infrastructure bill on the floor, anything that included the New Harmony Bridge was immediately blocked.

Because of this and all of the delays in getting a better highway built between Indy and Evansville, it has fostered this posture by those who live in the area that there is some kind of grudge against economic development in SW Indiana.

Yes, they got the Toyota plant in Princeton, but it took this herculean effort by Mitch Daniels to "get it done" on I-69. There were people still trying to block it way back when.

This and New Harmony just sends a vibe that people in the area just don't get the same level of importance to the greater whole of Indiana.

IDOT who now owns the "Cannonball Bridge" between St Francisville and Indiana, gets immediate cooperation from Indiana when looking at a replacement to that 1 lane former railroad bridge.

But when it comes to the New Harmony Bridge, Indiana doesn't want to have anything to do with it legislatively. It's an interesting irony.

They're going to replace that weird Cannonball Bridge? Does anyone actually use it?!  :-D

Yes sir. IDOT tracks the volume on their bridge reports now.

There is some movement to start putting funding together to keep it sustainable until a replacement can be put together.
My goodness I'd love to see the traffic counts on that thing! Probably the weirdest bridge I've ever seen! Looks so scary to drive on!

Pixel 5

evvroads

Quote from: edwaleni on June 20, 2021, 11:49:13 PM
Thanks to some links sent to me I did some historical research on this bridge.

There have been several bills in the Indiana Legislature to fund the remediation of this bridge or to buy it outright since the 1960's.

Many of those bills never got out of committee, but the few that did and actually got onto the floor were always blocked by a political contingent led by Indianapolis.

When SW Indiana legislators would get a infrastructure bill on the floor, anything that included the New Harmony Bridge was immediately blocked.

Because of this and all of the delays in getting a better highway built between Indy and Evansville, it has fostered this posture by those who live in the area that there is some kind of grudge against economic development in SW Indiana.

Yes, they got the Toyota plant in Princeton, but it took this herculean effort by Mitch Daniels to "get it done" on I-69. There were people still trying to block it way back when.

This and New Harmony just sends a vibe that people in the area just don't get the same level of importance to the greater whole of Indiana.

IDOT who now owns the "Cannonball Bridge" between St Francisville and Indiana, gets immediate cooperation from Indiana when looking at a replacement to that 1 lane former railroad bridge.

But when it comes to the New Harmony Bridge, Indiana doesn't want to have anything to do with it legislatively. It's an interesting irony.

There is absolutely the vibe that this area doesn't get the same level of importance as the rest of the state. Honestly, from my view it's like INDOT assigns their most junior engineers to work on projects in this area based on nothing more than traffic counts and theories from an office in Indianapolis. It's painfully obvious none of them drive any of these roads on any basis, because it's clear they don't understand how the traffic is actually flowing on them. All you really have to do is look at INDOTs "improvement" history in this area.

One of the more recent examples is the Lloyd/41 interchange. INDOT's initial plan to eliminate the two stoplights on the Lloyd was to literally rotate the intersection 90 degrees so the two stoplights were on 41, making four stoplights in a 0.5 mile stretch of 41. It was one of the most asinine and honestly insulting plans I've ever seen. Thankfully, our mayor was awake and apparently threw enough of a fit to get it changed to a full cloverleaf like any intersection of two six-lane, divided, major arterials should be.

A less egregious example includes the Lloyd/Fulton interchange, where the westbound on-ramp dumps two merged lanes worth of traffic onto the Lloyd with one of the shortest and most awkward acceleration/merging lanes I've ever seen. There's really no option there but to hope traffic in the far right lane of the Lloyd moves over, or else you have to pretty much gun it and recklessly shoot a gap between cars. That project also closed the westbound on-ramp at Mary St, leaving two miles between on-ramps for westbound traffic.

When Diamond Ave/SR 66 was reconstructed, for some reason INDOT didn't think it was necessary to put any type of barrier wall, cabling, or even grass inbetween Pigeon Creek and Mesker Park Dr. That always struck me as odd and I've never seen a "median" on a "divided" highway like that anywhere else before.

Then you look at what they're planning on doing to the Lloyd now. Instead of grade-separating Lloyd/Burkhardt and creating an interchange a la Lloyd/Green River, INDOT is going to make one of the busiest intersections in the entire city (during shopping season with unfamiliar, out-of-town, rural-accustomed drivers no less) their testing ground for displaced left turns. As if that wasn't enough, they're going to hammer the idea home with the same concept at Lloyd/Stockwell, Lloyd/Cross Pointe (potentially fixing a problem that isn't broken by adding a stoplight at the end of the ramp from SB I-69 to WB Lloyd), Lloyd/Red Bank, and Lloyd/Boehne Camp. They're going to completely eliminate left turn movements at Lloyd/Vann and call it a "minor" improvement. And in spending $100 millon and years on this project, they're not going to touch adding a third lane to Lloyd between Barker and University Parkway despite the need to handle the heavy USI traffic (I mean, Jesus Christ have they looked at the accident rates on that stretch of road? Especially west of Boehne Camp? There's injury accidents there nearly every day).

Anyway, I got on a rant, but this new project is just another in a line of examples of INDOT half-assing anything they try in this region. There's no way a project like this would be acceptable in Marion or Hamilton Counties, and that's pretty much what this region's opinion of INDOT (and the entire state administration for that matter) boils down to.

silverback1065

#79
Quote from: evvroads on June 21, 2021, 11:51:43 PM
Quote from: edwaleni on June 20, 2021, 11:49:13 PM
Thanks to some links sent to me I did some historical research on this bridge.

There have been several bills in the Indiana Legislature to fund the remediation of this bridge or to buy it outright since the 1960's.

Many of those bills never got out of committee, but the few that did and actually got onto the floor were always blocked by a political contingent led by Indianapolis.

When SW Indiana legislators would get a infrastructure bill on the floor, anything that included the New Harmony Bridge was immediately blocked.

Because of this and all of the delays in getting a better highway built between Indy and Evansville, it has fostered this posture by those who live in the area that there is some kind of grudge against economic development in SW Indiana.

Yes, they got the Toyota plant in Princeton, but it took this herculean effort by Mitch Daniels to "get it done" on I-69. There were people still trying to block it way back when.

This and New Harmony just sends a vibe that people in the area just don't get the same level of importance to the greater whole of Indiana.

IDOT who now owns the "Cannonball Bridge" between St Francisville and Indiana, gets immediate cooperation from Indiana when looking at a replacement to that 1 lane former railroad bridge.

But when it comes to the New Harmony Bridge, Indiana doesn't want to have anything to do with it legislatively. It's an interesting irony.

There is absolutely the vibe that this area doesn't get the same level of importance as the rest of the state. Honestly, from my view it's like INDOT assigns their most junior engineers to work on projects in this area based on nothing more than traffic counts and theories from an office in Indianapolis. It's painfully obvious none of them drive any of these roads on any basis, because it's clear they don't understand how the traffic is actually flowing on them. All you really have to do is look at INDOTs "improvement" history in this area.

One of the more recent examples is the Lloyd/41 interchange. INDOT's initial plan to eliminate the two stoplights on the Lloyd was to literally rotate the intersection 90 degrees so the two stoplights were on 41, making four stoplights in a 0.5 mile stretch of 41. It was one of the most asinine and honestly insulting plans I've ever seen. Thankfully, our mayor was awake and apparently threw enough of a fit to get it changed to a full cloverleaf like any intersection of two six-lane, divided, major arterials should be.

A less egregious example includes the Lloyd/Fulton interchange, where the westbound on-ramp dumps two merged lanes worth of traffic onto the Lloyd with one of the shortest and most awkward acceleration/merging lanes I've ever seen. There's really no option there but to hope traffic in the far right lane of the Lloyd moves over, or else you have to pretty much gun it and recklessly shoot a gap between cars. That project also closed the westbound on-ramp at Mary St, leaving two miles between on-ramps for westbound traffic.

When Diamond Ave/SR 66 was reconstructed, for some reason INDOT didn't think it was necessary to put any type of barrier wall, cabling, or even grass inbetween Pigeon Creek and Mesker Park Dr. That always struck me as odd and I've never seen a "median" on a "divided" highway like that anywhere else before.

Then you look at what they're planning on doing to the Lloyd now. Instead of grade-separating Lloyd/Burkhardt and creating an interchange a la Lloyd/Green River, INDOT is going to make one of the busiest intersections in the entire city (during shopping season with unfamiliar, out-of-town, rural-accustomed drivers no less) their testing ground for displaced left turns. As if that wasn't enough, they're going to hammer the idea home with the same concept at Lloyd/Stockwell, Lloyd/Cross Pointe (potentially fixing a problem that isn't broken by adding a stoplight at the end of the ramp from SB I-69 to WB Lloyd), Lloyd/Red Bank, and Lloyd/Boehne Camp. They're going to completely eliminate left turn movements at Lloyd/Vann and call it a "minor" improvement. And in spending $100 millon and years on this project, they're not going to touch adding a third lane to Lloyd between Barker and University Parkway despite the need to handle the heavy USI traffic (I mean, Jesus Christ have they looked at the accident rates on that stretch of road? Especially west of Boehne Camp? There's injury accidents there nearly every day).

Anyway, I got on a rant, but this new project is just another in a line of examples of INDOT half-assing anything they try in this region. There's no way a project like this would be acceptable in Marion or Hamilton Counties, and that's pretty much what this region's opinion of INDOT (and the entire state administration for that matter) boils down to.

I agree with everything you say here. But you also have to add the Lake County area to this list too. But honestly Eville is at the bottom and honestly always has. I never understood why Evansville seems to always get the shaft with everything. Those displaced left turns are dumb as hell, there shouldn't be any signals at all on the Lloyd from USI to SR 261. I also can't stand the full cloverleaf with 1 stop light bullshit they do all over the state. 69 coming to Evansville surprised me because I didn't think they cared enough to do that. Add to it the new design of 69 at veterans adding a signal for some dumb reason. Sometimes INDOT's "let's save money" just creates a mess that they have to fix to the original idea decades later.

evvroads

Quote from: silverback1065 on June 22, 2021, 12:42:58 AM
Quote from: evvroads on June 21, 2021, 11:51:43 PM
Quote from: edwaleni on June 20, 2021, 11:49:13 PM
Thanks to some links sent to me I did some historical research on this bridge.

There have been several bills in the Indiana Legislature to fund the remediation of this bridge or to buy it outright since the 1960's.

Many of those bills never got out of committee, but the few that did and actually got onto the floor were always blocked by a political contingent led by Indianapolis.

When SW Indiana legislators would get a infrastructure bill on the floor, anything that included the New Harmony Bridge was immediately blocked.

Because of this and all of the delays in getting a better highway built between Indy and Evansville, it has fostered this posture by those who live in the area that there is some kind of grudge against economic development in SW Indiana.

Yes, they got the Toyota plant in Princeton, but it took this herculean effort by Mitch Daniels to "get it done" on I-69. There were people still trying to block it way back when.

This and New Harmony just sends a vibe that people in the area just don't get the same level of importance to the greater whole of Indiana.

IDOT who now owns the "Cannonball Bridge" between St Francisville and Indiana, gets immediate cooperation from Indiana when looking at a replacement to that 1 lane former railroad bridge.

But when it comes to the New Harmony Bridge, Indiana doesn't want to have anything to do with it legislatively. It's an interesting irony.

There is absolutely the vibe that this area doesn't get the same level of importance as the rest of the state. Honestly, from my view it's like INDOT assigns their most junior engineers to work on projects in this area based on nothing more than traffic counts and theories from an office in Indianapolis. It's painfully obvious none of them drive any of these roads on any basis, because it's clear they don't understand how the traffic is actually flowing on them. All you really have to do is look at INDOTs "improvement" history in this area.

One of the more recent examples is the Lloyd/41 interchange. INDOT's initial plan to eliminate the two stoplights on the Lloyd was to literally rotate the intersection 90 degrees so the two stoplights were on 41, making four stoplights in a 0.5 mile stretch of 41. It was one of the most asinine and honestly insulting plans I've ever seen. Thankfully, our mayor was awake and apparently threw enough of a fit to get it changed to a full cloverleaf like any intersection of two six-lane, divided, major arterials should be.

A less egregious example includes the Lloyd/Fulton interchange, where the westbound on-ramp dumps two merged lanes worth of traffic onto the Lloyd with one of the shortest and most awkward acceleration/merging lanes I've ever seen. There's really no option there but to hope traffic in the far right lane of the Lloyd moves over, or else you have to pretty much gun it and recklessly shoot a gap between cars. That project also closed the westbound on-ramp at Mary St, leaving two miles between on-ramps for westbound traffic.

When Diamond Ave/SR 66 was reconstructed, for some reason INDOT didn't think it was necessary to put any type of barrier wall, cabling, or even grass inbetween Pigeon Creek and Mesker Park Dr. That always struck me as odd and I've never seen a "median" on a "divided" highway like that anywhere else before.

Then you look at what they're planning on doing to the Lloyd now. Instead of grade-separating Lloyd/Burkhardt and creating an interchange a la Lloyd/Green River, INDOT is going to make one of the busiest intersections in the entire city (during shopping season with unfamiliar, out-of-town, rural-accustomed drivers no less) their testing ground for displaced left turns. As if that wasn't enough, they're going to hammer the idea home with the same concept at Lloyd/Stockwell, Lloyd/Cross Pointe (potentially fixing a problem that isn't broken by adding a stoplight at the end of the ramp from SB I-69 to WB Lloyd), Lloyd/Red Bank, and Lloyd/Boehne Camp. They're going to completely eliminate left turn movements at Lloyd/Vann and call it a "minor" improvement. And in spending $100 millon and years on this project, they're not going to touch adding a third lane to Lloyd between Barker and University Parkway despite the need to handle the heavy USI traffic (I mean, Jesus Christ have they looked at the accident rates on that stretch of road? Especially west of Boehne Camp? There's injury accidents there nearly every day).

Anyway, I got on a rant, but this new project is just another in a line of examples of INDOT half-assing anything they try in this region. There's no way a project like this would be acceptable in Marion or Hamilton Counties, and that's pretty much what this region's opinion of INDOT (and the entire state administration for that matter) boils down to.

I agree with everything you say here. But you also have to add the Lake County area to this list too. But honestly Eville is at the bottom and honestly always has. I never understood why Evansville seems to always get the shaft with everything. Those displaced left turns are dumb as hell, there shouldn't be any signals at all on the Lloyd from USI to SR 261. I also can't stand the full cloverleaf with 1 stop light bullshit they do all over the state. 69 coming to Evansville surprised me because I didn't think they cared enough to do that. Add to it the new design of 69 at veterans adding a signal for some dumb reason. Sometimes INDOT's "let's save money" just creates a mess that they have to fix to the original idea decades later.

Oh, I'm sure we're not alone in getting the shaft from Indy. I know Indy is the capital and all, but I have yet to figure out why they seem to actively shun other parts of the state.

I forsee the displaced left turns being a disaster. Especially during Christmas season, we're going to get a bunch of out-of-town shoppers from rural southern Illinois and western Kentucky who are going to be completely confused at an interchange that's non-intuitive and completely foreign to them. I hope I'm wrong, but I predict a significant increase in wrong-way drivers and with accidents caused by people trying to make left turns from the through lanes at the actual intersection. Hopefully people figure it out, but I've been around drivers in this area for too long. Honestly, if the displaced left turns are the best design they can give us, I think most people would rather they just save the money and leave it the hell alone. Do it right or not at all kind of thing.

I'm certainly not a huge fan of the proposed stoplight on the new I-69/Veterans Memorial interchange, but I do think it's an improvement over the weird looping ramp they had before. It would have forced traffic leaving downtown Evansville on eastbound Veterans/northbound I-69 to do a full 360 loop before continuing on northbound I-69. They are also decreasing the shoulder widths on the new bridge, eliminating any possibility of restriping it to make it 6 lanes. I'm not sure how much money that saves them, but I'm sure in future years when the 100+ year old 41 crossing needs to be replaced that will be yet another example of infrastructure short-sightedness in this part of the state.

Life in Paradise

Quote from: evvroads on June 22, 2021, 11:20:07 AM
Quote from: silverback1065 on June 22, 2021, 12:42:58 AM
Quote from: evvroads on June 21, 2021, 11:51:43 PM
Quote from: edwaleni on June 20, 2021, 11:49:13 PM
Thanks to some links sent to me I did some historical research on this bridge.

There have been several bills in the Indiana Legislature to fund the remediation of this bridge or to buy it outright since the 1960's.

Many of those bills never got out of committee, but the few that did and actually got onto the floor were always blocked by a political contingent led by Indianapolis.

When SW Indiana legislators would get a infrastructure bill on the floor, anything that included the New Harmony Bridge was immediately blocked.

Because of this and all of the delays in getting a better highway built between Indy and Evansville, it has fostered this posture by those who live in the area that there is some kind of grudge against economic development in SW Indiana.

Yes, they got the Toyota plant in Princeton, but it took this herculean effort by Mitch Daniels to "get it done" on I-69. There were people still trying to block it way back when.

This and New Harmony just sends a vibe that people in the area just don't get the same level of importance to the greater whole of Indiana.

IDOT who now owns the "Cannonball Bridge" between St Francisville and Indiana, gets immediate cooperation from Indiana when looking at a replacement to that 1 lane former railroad bridge.

But when it comes to the New Harmony Bridge, Indiana doesn't want to have anything to do with it legislatively. It's an interesting irony.

There is absolutely the vibe that this area doesn't get the same level of importance as the rest of the state. Honestly, from my view it's like INDOT assigns their most junior engineers to work on projects in this area based on nothing more than traffic counts and theories from an office in Indianapolis. It's painfully obvious none of them drive any of these roads on any basis, because it's clear they don't understand how the traffic is actually flowing on them. All you really have to do is look at INDOTs "improvement" history in this area.

One of the more recent examples is the Lloyd/41 interchange. INDOT's initial plan to eliminate the two stoplights on the Lloyd was to literally rotate the intersection 90 degrees so the two stoplights were on 41, making four stoplights in a 0.5 mile stretch of 41. It was one of the most asinine and honestly insulting plans I've ever seen. Thankfully, our mayor was awake and apparently threw enough of a fit to get it changed to a full cloverleaf like any intersection of two six-lane, divided, major arterials should be.

A less egregious example includes the Lloyd/Fulton interchange, where the westbound on-ramp dumps two merged lanes worth of traffic onto the Lloyd with one of the shortest and most awkward acceleration/merging lanes I've ever seen. There's really no option there but to hope traffic in the far right lane of the Lloyd moves over, or else you have to pretty much gun it and recklessly shoot a gap between cars. That project also closed the westbound on-ramp at Mary St, leaving two miles between on-ramps for westbound traffic.

When Diamond Ave/SR 66 was reconstructed, for some reason INDOT didn't think it was necessary to put any type of barrier wall, cabling, or even grass inbetween Pigeon Creek and Mesker Park Dr. That always struck me as odd and I've never seen a "median" on a "divided" highway like that anywhere else before.

Then you look at what they're planning on doing to the Lloyd now. Instead of grade-separating Lloyd/Burkhardt and creating an interchange a la Lloyd/Green River, INDOT is going to make one of the busiest intersections in the entire city (during shopping season with unfamiliar, out-of-town, rural-accustomed drivers no less) their testing ground for displaced left turns. As if that wasn't enough, they're going to hammer the idea home with the same concept at Lloyd/Stockwell, Lloyd/Cross Pointe (potentially fixing a problem that isn't broken by adding a stoplight at the end of the ramp from SB I-69 to WB Lloyd), Lloyd/Red Bank, and Lloyd/Boehne Camp. They're going to completely eliminate left turn movements at Lloyd/Vann and call it a "minor" improvement. And in spending $100 millon and years on this project, they're not going to touch adding a third lane to Lloyd between Barker and University Parkway despite the need to handle the heavy USI traffic (I mean, Jesus Christ have they looked at the accident rates on that stretch of road? Especially west of Boehne Camp? There's injury accidents there nearly every day).

Anyway, I got on a rant, but this new project is just another in a line of examples of INDOT half-assing anything they try in this region. There's no way a project like this would be acceptable in Marion or Hamilton Counties, and that's pretty much what this region's opinion of INDOT (and the entire state administration for that matter) boils down to.

I agree with everything you say here. But you also have to add the Lake County area to this list too. But honestly Eville is at the bottom and honestly always has. I never understood why Evansville seems to always get the shaft with everything. Those displaced left turns are dumb as hell, there shouldn't be any signals at all on the Lloyd from USI to SR 261. I also can't stand the full cloverleaf with 1 stop light bullshit they do all over the state. 69 coming to Evansville surprised me because I didn't think they cared enough to do that. Add to it the new design of 69 at veterans adding a signal for some dumb reason. Sometimes INDOT's "let's save money" just creates a mess that they have to fix to the original idea decades later.

Oh, I'm sure we're not alone in getting the shaft from Indy. I know Indy is the capital and all, but I have yet to figure out why they seem to actively shun other parts of the state.

I forsee the displaced left turns being a disaster. Especially during Christmas season, we're going to get a bunch of out-of-town shoppers from rural southern Illinois and western Kentucky who are going to be completely confused at an interchange that's non-intuitive and completely foreign to them. I hope I'm wrong, but I predict a significant increase in wrong-way drivers and with accidents caused by people trying to make left turns from the through lanes at the actual intersection. Hopefully people figure it out, but I've been around drivers in this area for too long. Honestly, if the displaced left turns are the best design they can give us, I think most people would rather they just save the money and leave it the hell alone. Do it right or not at all kind of thing.

I'm certainly not a huge fan of the proposed stoplight on the new I-69/Veterans Memorial interchange, but I do think it's an improvement over the weird looping ramp they had before. It would have forced traffic leaving downtown Evansville on eastbound Veterans/northbound I-69 to do a full 360 loop before continuing on northbound I-69. They are also decreasing the shoulder widths on the new bridge, eliminating any possibility of restriping it to make it 6 lanes. I'm not sure how much money that saves them, but I'm sure in future years when the 100+ year old 41 crossing needs to be replaced that will be yet another example of infrastructure short-sightedness in this part of the state.
Your "rants" could have come from my mouth verbatim over the past few years.  The state built the Lloyd Expressway in the mid 80s and put in an overpass over Green River Road, only to tear it out and decide to build it higher to try out their new one point traffic light underneath (which does work).  They could have used that money to partially fund the needed overpass at Burkhardt Road, which most local people would have said was needed at the time of the original construction, and when several parcels of land were easily available.  We also were treated to the test of the advisory signs which were rarely used, but now are in Indianapolis.  All of ours were pulled out, so that cost was wasted here.  We also have three state highway roundabouts (IN-61 in Warrick County); no doubt the legacy of a young engineer from Carmel, IN.

edwaleni

As for the Cannonball, IDOT tracks 500 movements a month on it currently.

As for the New Harmony Bridge and Indiana avoiding it.

Toll revenue on the bridge dropped into oblivion after INDOT upgraded IN-69 between New Harmony to Griffin.

When they upgraded IN-69, they replaced what was an old weight restricted bridge over the Black River.

This made the bridge at New Harmony redundant as it pushed heavy traffic up to the crossing at I-64.

Traffic analysis showed that trucks coming and going out of Mt Vernon, Indiana were using the New Harmony to reach I-64 in Illinois due to the weight restriction on IN-69.

When the bridge was replaced, Mt Vernon traffic immediately relocated to it and used it to reach I-64.

So INDOT essentially bypassed the bridge by making it easier to cross at I-64.

silverback1065

500 cars A MONTH?! that's not worth replacing.

edwaleni

Quote from: silverback1065 on June 23, 2021, 12:38:27 AM
500 cars A MONTH?! that's not worth replacing.

Apparently with the decline in Lawrenceville, (25% in last 30 years) more people from St Francisville are going/working in Vincennes.



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