HANCOCK COUNTY — It’s a good thing Hancock County Engineer Gary Pool is a planner because his job requires that type of thinking when it comes to making the county roads as safe as possible. His office is mapped out with new road improvement ideas for much of the county with most of the planning starting years in advance.
A few years ago, Pool helped make the determination that many intersections in the county needed to be turned into roundabouts in order to keep drivers safe.
In addition to studying traffic accident reports and patterns as well as securing funding to improve the county roads, Pool and his department must determine which areas in the county need the most work and when the work can and should be done. All of that comes on top of managing and working with the operational timing of state officials.
“It’s a never-ending job and one with lots of delays, that’s for sure,” Pool said.
Pool received word late last week that work to improve an intersection where two of the busiest roads in the southern part of the county meet is slated to move forward this summer with the creation of a new roundabout at the intersection of County Roads South 600W and 200S.
“That roundabout is going to straighten out those roads that are offset there,” Pool said.
The road improvement project is one of 75 jobs around the state that was out for bid recently and was officially one of 35 that was approved by state officials to move forward.
“We were successful in having that roundabout move forward,” Pool said with some relief. “That’s good news because you just never know … It’s been really tough trying to get anything done with inflation.”
If plans unfold as expected Pool noted drivers will start seeing the beginning phases of the project start to unfold in the spring with the goal of having the major work done this summer. Then if all goes well, the roundabout should be completed by the coming fall.
“It all just depends when we start, but we know we want to minimize traffic disruption in that area,” Pool said. “We had to extend our schedule for the project just to get our bid approved and I’m glad we did because 40 people did not have their projects approved.”
Pool said they’ll have a pre-construction meeting soon and they’ll learn for certain if the roundabout will actually be done this year as planned, or have to slide into work to be done in 2024.
“We have to give the contractors a two-year window or they won’t even bid on our projects,” Pool said. “There is nothing fun about construction anymore because everything takes a couple of years to get done when it used be just one year.”
The newest roundabout is one of three new ones county officials are working on to get installed in the Southern part of the county after they installed one already at South 500W and 300S last year due to safety concerns.
“I’m already thinking about the other ones that need to go in,” Pool said.
The other two roundabouts slated for installation are located at the intersection of County Roads South 600W and 300S, which could be bid as soon as this December, with the other roundabout at the intersection of South 500W and 200S expected to follow in a few years.
“It’s just a process,” Pool said. “But, the roundabouts are worth the wait because they do make those intersections safer, and that’s what we want to do — keep drivers safe.”
In addition to adding a total of four new roundabouts to the Southern part of the county, Pool noted 600W in the McCordsville area will be busy soon as the county has plans to add several roundabouts there.
“We’ve got a bunch of work getting ready to go on north of I-70 in the McCordsville area,” Pool said. “We anticipate 600W to be very busy this summer with four roundabouts going in this year north of I-70.”
Pool has also applied for grants to install more roundabouts on 700W, he said, but won’t know until late March if the county will get that funding. When asked if the county is competing with the likes of the roundabout capital, Carmel, Pool laughed and then noted that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep drivers safe.
“We want that zero-fatality mark on our county roads,” Pool said. “I really don’t even care what the roads look like. I mean, I want them to be pretty and effective, but as long as we get lower fatalities and injuries, those are the metrics I operate on.”
Pool noted they tried to bid the roundabout project at South 600W and 200S in Southern Hancock this past December, but the project came in at $900,000 over budget.
“The state had 75 projects out for letting at that time,” Pool said. “Thirty-five of them didn’t let because they were over the engineer’s estimate and that was a big disaster for the state, but it happens with inflation so high.”
Pool had to work closely with state officials and ask them to give the project the extra money needed and was thrilled when they got word late last week that it went through.
“I had to beg, crawl and roll around on the floor, but we got an extra $796,000,” Pool said. “It’s my job, so I’m not complaining, just informing.”
