Work On Indian Trail Should Begin This Month

The scaled-down widening of Indian Trail Road will begin later this month after years of delays and neighborhood concerns.

Workers will install a third lane from from Kathleen to Barnes Road and traffic signals at Pacific Park and Barnes in this first phase of construction, said city traffic engineer Don Ramsey.

Bike lanes, sidewalks and a landscaped median also are planned. The construction should be complete this fall, Ramsey said.

A second phase of the project, from Barnes to Ridgecrest, is expected to begin next year.

The North Indian Trail Neighborhood Council wants the road widened to five lanes as approved by the City Council last July. But, that just isn’t possible, city councilwoman Cherie Rodgers said.

The right-of-way needed to build the five lanes couldn’t be acquired at a reasonable price, she said.

The cost of the entire project as it now proposed already tops $4.2 million, Rodgers said.

“It was either this or possibly wait for another 20 years,” she said.

But, even with the planned expansion, neighbors believe traffic will continue to be a headache as the area expands. About 2,000 more homes or apartments have been proposed or approved for the North Indian Trail neighborhood.

Neighbors said that, even at five lanes on the north end, the road will bottleneck south of Kathleen because people have to pull into traffic to get out of their driveways. The construction will mark the second time this year that traffic along Indian Trail will be reduced to one lane.

Long traffic backups made driving Indian Trail difficult this spring while city workers installed a water main.

“Controlling traffic during construction will be difficult on the neighborhood and we recognize that,” Ramsey said.

Rodgers, who lives in the neighborhood, believes the project cannot wait any longer.

“It’s very badly needed,” she said. “The city was spending a fortune patching the road up. They need to just do it right.”