By next month, northeast Fort Wayne commuters and residents should have a better idea of where and whether the state plans to construct a new interchange on Interstate 69.
Dan Avery, director of the Northeast Indiana Regional Coordinating Council, a regional transportation planning agency, gave a presentation Tuesday on the options being examined to alleviate congestion at the Dupont Road interchange on Interstate 69.
While the interchange is already congested, Avery said it will get worse after the expanded Parkview North Hospital campus opens in 2012.
This could add as many as 4,000 daily trips in the area, plus the land around the hospital is expected to grow commercially.
The council and the Indiana Department of Transportation have nearly completed a study of options to improve traffic flow.
Those options include a new interchange at Union Chapel Road, a new interchange at Hursh Road, improving the Dupont interchange or some combination of all of them.
Many people who live in and near Autumn Ridge expressed concern that a new interchange at Union Chapel Road would cut into their neighborhood, but Avery stressed that no decision has been made on any option.
One is coming quickly, however, as he said the state and his group will likely agree on a preliminary option in a month.
If a choice involves building a new interchange, the public input process will begin.
That process includes public hearings where residents can testify about how such a project would affect them.
The state already is moving forward with a project to improve the Dupont interchange next year.
The project will construct a new lane from Dupont to southbound I-69, which is the most heavily traveled of the ramps at the interchange.
But the project was called nothing more than a Band-Aid to buy planners more time for a long-term solution. Avery said he is trying to convince the state that the Dupont interchange will need improvements even if a new interchange is built to the north.
“Regardless of what happens elsewhere, that interchange is going to be under stress,” he said.
Between 10 percent and 15 percent of Parkview’s customers are expected to come from the north, so most drivers will likely use the Dupont interchange to reach the new hospital campus.
