I-65 interchange plays key role in Johnson County thoroughfare

Funding remains the critical issue as Greenwood officials seek to build a new interchange at I-65 and Worthsville Road that would be the linchpin in a proposed east-west corridor.

How to transform Worthsville Road into a major thoroughfare in a way that would attract federal dollars -- and possibly secure an interchange -- also remains a challenge for officials.
Advertisement

The goal is to create an east-west corridor through Johnson County that would connect Morgan and Shelby counties using a patchwork of existing roadways -- and an interchange.

Officials envision the new thoroughfare as a way to relieve traffic in the Main Street area of Greenwood and as an economic development tool.

Greenwood Mayor Charles Henderson recently met with Indiana Department of Transportation Commissioner Michael W. Reed and other state transportation officials about the city's vision for the interchange and corridor.

Henderson said the project is expected to be placed on an INDOT priority list for new projects this summer.

"We're hoping that it's going to be on that list," Henderson said. "Where it will be on that list, who knows?"

However, projects on the list have no funding in place, Henderson said.

City officials are working with U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., to find federal funding for the interchange. In April, Buyer announced that he has requested $10 million from the House Appropriations Committee to help fund the estimated $30 million project.

"In the meantime, I'm doing everything I can, turning over every rock, to find funding," Henderson said.

Engineering firm American Structurepoint, with funding from a federal grant, has plotted a preferred route for the thoroughfare project: From west to east, the corridor would travel on Ind. 144 in Morgan County to County Road 144 and Whiteland Road in Johnson County; north on Ind. 135; and east on Stones Crossing, Worthsville and Clark School roads into Shelby County, where it eventually could tie into I-74.

Worthsville could be a sticking point.

At Tuesday's Greenwood Redevelopment Commission meeting, members discussed the Worthsville widening as it relates to the proposed interchange.

Commission member Lee Money said federal requirements for an interchange could change the scope of the Worthsville widening, which currently calls for four lanes and a decorative median. That could be changed to five lanes.

"If the feds are going to require us to redesign it to a five-lane road, then that's going to change a number of things," Money said, noting the possibility of having to acquire more land.

"When it changes our footprint, it changes nearly everything else about the project."

Meanwhile, Henderson will wait to find out if the project appears on the state's list.

"In this business," he said, "it's one piece at a time."