WARSAW — Overnight road work that will completely close a small stretch of Parker Street north of U.S. 30 in front of the Warsaw Menards store starts Wednesday night.

The closing will be from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and is an attempt to help accommodate traffic and business during normal work hours.

The city announced the plan Friday.

Dustin Dillon, director of Warsaw Public Works, said the resurfacing could take two or three days.

After that is complete, crews will begin more road resurfacing work on Husky Trail to the west of the Menards entrance and Patterson Road to the east.

The entire project should take about two weeks, Dillon said during an interview for In The Know, which airs this weekend on Kensington Digital Media radio stations this weekend.

The entire project is expected to cost about $900,000, but half of that is covered by the state.

"That much roadway, that much improvement going on for 13 days of gray hair and scratching and some adjusted traffic patterns, I think it's a huge win for our community," Dillon said.

The post Overnight road construction on Parker Street near Menards begins Wednesday night appeared first on News Now Warsaw.

WARSAW — Railroad repairs are progressing well and the city of Warasaw announced on Thursday that the Center Street railroad crossing is expected to reopen today after four days of repairs.

Another railroad crossing, this one on Main Street just to the north of Center Street, is expected to reopen on Saturday, the city said.

Also Friday, another nearby project involving paving improvements in the downtown, will undergo a fresh paving on Center Street from North Detroit and west to Indiana Street.

Once that is completed, work crews will move on to paving Lake Street from Center Street to Main Street, the city said.

On Monday, crews will pave Main Street from Lake Street to Buffalo Street.  Once that is completed, they will move on to pave Fort Wayne Street from Detroit Street to Buffalo Street.

Pavement markings will follow in subsequent days.

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COLUMBIA CITY — In its biggest announcement to date concerning US 30, the Indiana Department of Transportation expressed full support on Wednesday for the construction of an interchange and overpass near Steel Dynamics in Whitley County.

Officials also said those two projects and improvements at two other nearby intersections will transform several miles of US 30 into a limited-access highway that many officials want to see happen all the way to Valparaiso.

[caption id="attachment_101674" align="alignright" width="360"] Steel Dynamics President and COO Barry Schneider smiles while talking with Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb after the state announced plans for an interchange and overpass near the company's plant outside of Columbia City. News Now Warsaw photo by Dan Spalding.[/caption]

The announcement was made by Gov. Eric Holcomb at the SDI headquarters overlooking the highway and comes months after executives from the Columbia City firm and Zimmer Biomet in Warsaw publicly implored state leadership to move more quickly in improving safety conditions along the corridor.

INDOT Commissioner Mike Smith and Holcomb confirmed Steel Dynamics has agreed to help finance the two new projects.

"I think SDI fully understands they have a huge investment here in this geography and so they're willing partner to help us get there on project costs," Smith said.

"We couldn't be more appreciative," Holcomb added.

Steel Dynamics President and COO Barry Schneider told News Now Warsaw they’re committed to providing an unspecified amount of money toward the projects.

"We believe in putting skin in the game," Schneider said. "Right from the beginning, everybody's been clear that when we have "asks," we want to make sure the community appreciates what's happening and that everybody is involved — financially supporting projects like this is important."

The newest effort involves the construction of an interchange at CR 600E and an overpass at CR 700E. Already in the loop are plans for interchanges at Kroemer and Flaugh Roads and at Butt Road in Allen County, further to the east.

The combination of those improvements, Smith said, will create a limited access highway from CR 600E to I-69.

Holcomb attributed Indiana's ranking as the No. 1 advanced manufacturing state in America (per capita) to what's happening in northeast Indiana.

He said an estimated 745 million tons of freight pass through Indiana roads each year.

He commended state lawmakers for the pro-growth tax environment, and the continuity of that leadership has brought forward to cultivate an economy "that is so attractive and really creates this flywheel effect where progress attracts progress."

Former Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, who serves as the president of Indiana's US 30 Coalition, was part of a large delegation representing Warsaw, Kosciusko County and Winona Lake that attended the gathering

Thallemer also spoke and pointed out that the original construction of US 30 some 52 years ago helped propel development in many of the communities but that congestion over the past 20 years has become problematic.

"An unsafe roadway degrades the reliability of travel — a point that business industry and industry business partners consistently remind us of," he said.

"Projects of this magnitude are complex, expensive, controversial and require patience, but bold leadership advances vision to create momentum for change," Thallemer said in thanking Holcomb for "navigating those complexities."

Also among those attending was Warsaw City Council President Jack Wilhite who said he thinks the large group from Kosciusko County at the meeting wants to see similar progress in their jurisdiction.

Intersections in Kosciusko County have some of the large number of serious traffic accident among all counties across the entire stretch of US 30.

"We're just showing our support for making sure something gets done," Wilhite said.

Wilhite said he thinks the announcement serves as an exclamation mark for Holbomb's support of the US 30 coalition as he prepares to step down as governor at the end of December.

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WARSAW — The intersection of Husky Trail and CR East 200 North will be closed beginning Wednesday.

NIPSCO will close the intersection at CR North 100 East (Husky Trail) and CR East 200N beginning  Wednesday, and the closing is expected to continue until mid-December.

The intersection is heavily traveled and motorists are advised to avoid the area and plan for travel time for detours.

Lengthy delays and traffic back-ups are anticipated in the area surrounding the closure, the city said in a news release.

If driving in the vicinity of the closure, please exercise extra caution.

Below is a map highlighting the best detours to use.

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WARSAW — Police are investigating a critical injury crash in the area of N. SR 13 and Executive Drive in Syracuse.

Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Deputies and emergency personnel responded at 6:09 p.m. Friday to a motorcycle accident involving a pick-up truck on North SR 13 at the intersection of Executive Drive.

Preliminary investigation determined a 2012 Harley Davidson motorcycle was
southbound on SR 13 approaching Executive Drive when a 2023 Dodge Ram on
Executive Drive turned north on SR 13, failing to yield to the motorcycle.

Denny Koselke, 54, Syracuse, was the driver of the Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Koselke was thrown from his motorcycle after the collision and was airlifted
to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne for treatment of his injuries. He was listed in
stable but critical condition.

Jack Wright, 65, Leesburg, was the driver of the Dodge Ram truck and was
treated at the scene by Syracuse EMS.

Assisting at the scene was the Syracuse Police Department, Syracuse Fire and
EMS, North Webster EMS, Department of Natural Resources, Lutheran Air, and
Reichert & Knepp Wrecker Service.

The accident remains under investigation by the KSCO FACT team.

The post Motorcyclist injured in Syracuse accident appeared first on News Now Warsaw.

WARSAW -- An important part of the U.S. 30 ProPEL study by the Indiana Department of Transportation will be presented to the public Tuesday in Columbia City and Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer is encouraging anyone interested to attend.

The U.S. 30 Purpose and Need draft document will be presented Tuesday, at Indian Springs Middle School, 1692 Ind. 9, Columbia City, from 5 to 7 p.m.

“This Purpose and Need is really important,” Thallemer said. “If you get on the website and get a hold of this, there’s a lot of detail of essentially what they’re going to look at. They basically developed the vision statement, the purpose - they want to enhance safety for all users, provide equitable transportation and compliment local community goals and objectives, including maintaining the character of the study area.”

The Purpose and Need report can be found here.

Along with the report and videos, there’s a button for the public to leave their comments.

Four ProPEL studies are being prepared along U.S. 30 and U.S. 31, according to the report.

This effort includes two studies along U.S. 30 from east of Valparaiso to the Indiana-Ohio state line and two studies along U.S. 31 from 276th Street in Hamilton County to its connection with U.S. 30 in Marshall County. Each of these four studies is occurring along a similar timeline and are being closely coordinated with one another to establish a shared vision to drive planning decisions for the corridors, the report states.

In the Purpose and Needs draft report, the “needs” break down into three components, Thallemer said. At the top of the list is safety for all of the users.

“They’ve identified many areas along 30 where there’s higher-than-average severity and frequency of crashes. The safety is obviously No. 1,” he said. “The second part of that though is local mobility, being able to cross and make left turns into and out of the community. And then the third need is for regional and statewide mobility, which means folks passing through.”

He said he didn’t know if any of it was really surprising from what everyone’s heard, but the report formalizes “the work they’ve done. They’ve spent the last six to eight months gathering data, gathering traffic data, crash data, talking to folks, having meetings, public meetings, website input, local meetings at the libraries, drop-in pop-up meetings. So there’s been a lot of input up to this point and what they’ve developed, this Purpose and Needs statement, is pretty much the result of that, and that is now going to set the direction for how they are going to propose these solutions.”

Thallemer said the most important thing is that people continue to be informed and provide public input.

“If that’s at the public meeting tomorrow night, please, please attend,” he said.

All the documents are available on the Propelus30.com website.

“You can see the information. You can actually see the previous presentations ... tomorrow night being the last Purpose and Need meeting, the input is just so critical. But it will all be based on this report that they published May 26,” he said.

The report talks about six intersections along U.S. 30 that are “just unacceptable,” Thallemer pointed out.

The report states that “Currently, there are six intersections with failing/unacceptable traffic operations. With no action, this number is expected to grow to 12 intersections by year 2045.”

While he didn’t know the specifics, Thallemer referred to a “heat map” in the report that shows the high-crash frequencies. Warsaw has what appears to be the most concentrated issue with safety, which includes CR 325E to CR 150W.

“The other thing I noticed was that 34% of all the crashes are in the Warsaw segment, and that’s the highest of all the segments, which comes out to 24.6 crashes per mile per year. That’s a lot. The average is nine in the corridor - nine crashes per mile per year. Most of those crashes are rear-ends and right angles,” Thallemer said.

Safety is obviously the No. 1 concern.

“Here, locally in Warsaw, we’re what I would consider to be, again, the highest concentration of intersections that are performing very poorly,” Thallemer said.

After the Purpose and Need report presentation, the next step will be the Alternatives Analysis, which INDOT will be working on.

“They’re not going to come up with a specific plan. They’re going to come up with alternatives and they’re going to spend the next six months doing that, and then there will be a third public meeting,” Thallemer said. That third meeting will likely follow another published report on alternatives and be by early 2024.

The first meeting was the Vision Scoping about six months ago. The second meeting is Purpose and Need, and the third will be Alternatives Analysis.

“Once they take input on the alternatives, then probably about a year from now they will come up with a final report,” Thallemer said.

The involvement of Warsaw and Kosciusko County residents into the U.S. 30 study has been good so far, he said.

“From what I understand, there’s been good input, but a lot of that first meeting was just kind of general understanding of what was going on and I don’t think people felt like they had any direct impact on what’s going to come out of this thing. Now that they’re narrowing down the reason, purpose and need, and those locations, now folks can really identify on those locations what they would consider need done,” he said.

Another document, titled “Existing Transportation Conditions Report US 30 East,” can be found online here.

“There’s a lot there,” Thallemer said. “But I think the critical thing is safety, local mobility and then regional and statewide mobility are what they’re really looking at as far as getting this narrowed down on how they want to handle the solutions.”

He said he doesn’t think there’s any question from the study that they’ve identified that there’s a significant problem with safety in intersections that are failing or unacceptable as far as handling traffic.

“A lot of that is local traffic, and I think that’s where we really are in this county. Obviously, we want to get people safely through our community, but we have people in our community that are crossing the road and navigating U.S. 30 as a part of our community that we’re having real problems with. It’s pretty much obvious from the report,” Thallemer stated.

The post US 30 draft report to be unveiled Tuesday night in Columbia City appeared first on News Now Warsaw.

Warsaw Police Captain Kip Shuter tells News Now Warsaw the closure will be during daytime hours as crew work to demolish part of the old Little Crow Foods building. Shuter says emergency vehicles will have access to the road during the closure.

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