City, INDOT Agree On Changes For Hickory Street Railroad Crossings
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
A meeting last week between the city of Warsaw and the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) regarding the railroad crossings traffic signals on Hickory Street should prove beneficial to drivers downtown.
Discussing that meeting at the Board of Public Works and Safety Monday, Mayor Joe Thallemer said, “We met with them, I believe last Wednesday, and had a pretty difficult meeting with them, and basically we told them they had to make some changes, which they acknowledged some concerns.”
He said he had three changes that INDOT made Friday that he wanted to pass along and drivers might have noticed already.
“They have eliminated the delay between the two sets of signals between Detroit and Hickory for westbound Market, Center and Main. So, that 10-second difference, from the first light to the second light has been eliminated so there will be, essentially, free flow,” Thallemer said.
INDOT also “will provide more priority to (Ind.) 15 and Detroit Street while trains are present. So the length of the signal, trying to move traffic through, when there’s a train on the tracks, so the north/south 15 has a little bit of extra time,” he said.
Thirdly, Thallemer said INDOT also will do the same thing to Market, Center and Main after a train passes.
“They’ll improve the cycle times to try to clear the east/west traffic that had been stopped for the train,” he said.
“So, I think we made some pretty good progress. I noticed it this morning right away, and we’ll talk a little bit more about it at the Council meeting tonight because I know it came up, but I just think it’s important to get that out.”
INDOT issued a news release on the improvements early Monday afternoon.
The release states INDOT “continues work on a project to modernize the traffic signals along (Ind.) 15/Detroit Street that began in 2020. The project includes communication interconnect between the new traffic signals and Norfolk Southern Railroad in order to provide safer operation when a train is present. Additional changes to Hickory Street include conversion to one-way traffic and new traffic signals to the east of the railroad tracks on Market Street, Center Street and Main Street. These new traffic signals are designed to avoid traffic backing up onto the railroad tracks while waiting at a red light.”
The release also states that, “Construction activities are set to be complete on the project as early as this week; however, INDOT engineers will continue to monitor the new traffic signal systems and make additional modifications to improve traffic efficiency over the course of the next several weeks.
“INDOT appreciates the public’s patience as the construction work in the area has taken longer than expected. INDOT also greatly appreciates the cooperation of the city of Warsaw through this difficult and complex project.”
Anyone interested in providing feedback or asking questions about the project or the new signal operation should contact INDOT’s Customer Service Center by visiting INDOT4U.com or by calling 855-463-6848.
The Hickory Street project converted Hickory Street to become a one-way street, with traffic flowing north and south from Center Street, according to a news release from INDOT in September. Safety medians, curbing, parking changes, and additional safety signage and signals were to be added to Hickory Street to improve safety when a train is approaching the area.
