Local Edition: Crawfordsville Indiana

Introduction

Crawfordsville Indiana is a historic small city located in west central Indiana. Crawfordsville is known famously as the place where General Lew Wallace penned his famous novels, Including the novel Ben Hur. The city is also known as the Athens of Indiana because it is the hometown of numerous authors. The city has many old established industrial plants located all over the city. The city also is a historic publishing hub due to the location of RR Donnelley's publishing plant (now known as LSC communications) and Penguin Random House. Due to its rich publishing history and industrial past this creates a great opportunity to enhance the region and build to the strengths this city has to offer.

In order to highlight the best that Crawfordsville has to offer and enhance the city there needs to be upgrades to the infrastructure in the city to address several important criteria. 1. Remove Excess Trucks and Commercial vehicles from the city. 2. Improve traffic safety and reduce congestion. 3. Beautify Streetscapes and create historic districts within the city. 4. Replace and upgrade sidewalks to include ADA compliance.

Currently the area suffers from substandard maintenance to its roadways due to lack of street and highway funds necessary to repair sidewalks, widen arteries, replace pavements, and even construct new roads. However, since Crawfordsville is a center for industry and is located within commuting distance from larger cities like Indianapolis, Lafayette and Danville, Ill. the city and county leadership and INDOT needs to address these issues. Additionally, Crawfordsville has and plenty of developable land within the city limits and immediately adjaced to the city limits. Due to its being located along the Interstate 74 corridor, the potential for industrial and commercial growth is very high as companies consider relocating to the community due to decreased zoning regulations and affordable labor labor and facility costs that are prevalent here. It is anticipated that new businesses and residences will eventually come to our city as the city implements development plans and a planning strategy to facilitate that growth. The question is, is what kind of businesses and industries does the city want to attract.

It is important at this vital stage to look at ways to address the traffic and growts needs for a burgeoning city especially since there are many substandard roadways such as narrow streets and county roads handling more intense traffic demand then they were designed to handle. It is clear that Crawfordsville needs a master plan for roadways that will need to be constructed in order to efficiently move traffic in, around and through the city, while addressing the inefficiencies of the existing roadway network. The city also needs to work with the county to establish an economic development corporation to help in attracting business to the area. Clearly this is just a starting point and there is much work to do, but it is clearly needed.

Proposed Improvements

Downtown Improvements and Highway Relinquishments

Key objectives

• Decommission US 136 east of US 41 in Veedersburg and relinquish the route through downtown. This route is largely duplicated by Interstate 74 and various state routes so it is no longer needed and is not a priority truck route.
• Reroute SR-32 and SR-47 onto a new bypass alignment and relinquish these routes through downtown. This would address traffic congestion downtown by moving the traffic away from the city and allow for beautification and infrastructure projects to be completed downtown that can benefit local businesses.
• Designate these major arterials as local truck routes and upgrade the roadway facilities to higher design standards with wider shoulders and parking bans to make truck movements easier and get trucks off of narrow residential streets. These streets include:
  • Mill Street
  • Wabash Street
  • Englewood Dr
• Improve Streetscapes on downtown grid including:
  • Main Street
  • Water Street
  • Pike Street
  • Wabash Street
  • Market Street
• Grade separate railway crossings:
  • Main Street
  • Market Street
• Remove railway spur along Franklin Street and Wabash campus to make way for new rail trail construction.

South Major Arterial/Ben Hur Parkway

Ben Hur Parkway is a conceptual parkway extension for SR-32 that would connect to a conceptual Freeway that connects I-74 to Northwest Indianapolis via Lebanon. Ben Hur Parkway would directly serve industrial areas near the Nucor Steel plant and the new Tempur + Sealy facility that is being built nearby. This could also lead to new potential housing developments nearby to help with the housing shortage in the community. For more information see Corridors in Motion-32

SR-47 Interchange

Construct a new interchange at SR 47 and I-74

Roundabouts

Consider roundabouts at key city intersections where traffic bottlenecks or to remove traffic signals to improve traffic flow. Key intersections to consider

• South Blvd & Ladoga Rd
• Mill Street & Elmore St
• Mill Street & Chestnut St
• Mill Street & College St
• Wabash Ave/Englewood Dr & Indianapolis Rd/Main St
• Market St & Darlington Ave
• Englewood Dr & Lebanon Rd
• Grant Ave & Wabash Ave
• Grant Ave & Jennison St