KNOX COUNTY, Ind. (WAWV/WTWO) – Knox County is working with the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) to reconstruct a highly traveled area.
The construction begins just off of U.S.41 onto Elkhorn Road at Keller Road.
Knox County Commissioner, Kellie Streeter, said the four million dollar project aims to combat safety issues.
“The industrial park has grown exponentially over the last decade,” Streeter said. “As a member of the development corporation here in Knox County, we’ve created a mini-park concept and it’s just continued to grow and grow. With the added traffic with Futaba and Farbus, we saw it necessary that this road really needed to be built to handle the traffic.”
What once was a narrow country road, is now being reconstructed into a two-lane industrial road. Streeter said the project goes beyond increasing traffic flow.
“It was a safety issue that compounded it,” Streeter said. “We had multiple, dozens of property damage accidents as well as multiple personal injury accidents that resulted here in this area. After seeing that and looking at the data, we went to INDOT to say, we need to make this road wider, we need to make it safer, and we need a partner to do that.”
While the four million dollar project aims to combat safety issues, lifelong resident Ruth Kroeger said the construction has affected her daily travels, such as visiting her late husband.
“To go to my husband’s grave I have to go through downtown, to Decker Road, and then take the highway, and go over to Hart,” Kroeger said.
As many oversized loads and semis drive these roadways daily, Knox County Highway Engineer and Superintendent Benji Boyd said the mile-long construction will be well worth the wait.
“I believe that you’ll see more industry situating out here, and it will be a nice road for the industry,” Boyd said.
Construction began earlier this summer and is expected to be completed by November 10th.
