Thank you for taking time to learn more about planned improvements coming to four busy intersections in downtown Muncie. We’re eager to show you how we can improve 32 The project includes four intersections, Main Street and Madison Street, Jackson Street and Madison Street, Main Street and Hackley Street and Jackson Street and Hackley Street. The project area is unique in that it has two historic districts, an arts district, and several section 4f properties. Section 4f is the law that applies to significant publicly owned parks, recreation areas, wildlife and waterfowl refuges and National Register of Historic Places that are eligible are listed historic properties, regardless of ownership. Lands subject to this law are considered section 4f resources. What are the needs for the project, or the why the need is due to high crash frequency, high crash severity and low operational efficiency. Recent improvements to Jackson Street and Main Street address some of the concerns on the straight away sections of the roadways, this project steps in to address the serious safety concerns at the intersections. Crash data was analyzed over the course of two years, from 2018 to 2020 each of the intersections had several crashes in that time. Of those crashes, 20 resulted in fatal or incapacitating injuries. That leads to the purpose of this project, or the desired outcome, which is to reduce the frequency of overall crashes, the severity of crashes, as well as maintain at least a level of service grade of C for all movements at the intersections. Level of service is a way for the Indiana Department of Transportation to evaluate the quality of traffic flow on its roadways and intersections. Level of service is a qualitative measure that considers factors like speed, delay and congestion to assign an A through F grade with the purpose in mind, we’ve been looking at potential solutions. As you might be aware, the state and the city previously entered into an agreement to transfer control of state road 32 to the city, while roundabouts were mentioned in the agreement based on previous analysis, we are finalizing an Alternatives Analysis as part of this project, stop controls, traffic signals and roundabouts are all being considered as we look at safety, mobility and impacts. Four way stop controls and two way stop controls were evaluated. These options didn’t adequately address crash concerns and made the level of service worse for these reasons. They don’t meet the project’s Purpose and Need. Traffic signals were also analyzed. This is the current configuration at the Madison Street intersections. Keeping this configuration would not address crash concerns at Hackley street, a traffic signal would reduce crashes. However, the volume at the intersection doesn’t meet signal warrants and could create undue delays in other areas like Jackson and Maine. For these reasons, traffic signals do not meet the Purpose and Need of the project. Here are some very early designs with full size roundabouts. The upside is that the full size roundabouts do meet the Purpose and Need. They provide safety benefits and improve traffic operations. The downside is the amount of right of way and section 4f impacts created by the size of the roundabouts. Here are preliminary urban roundabout designs. They have a much more compact design. The full size roundabout and the urban roundabout have the same performance when it comes to safety and mobility converting signalized intersections and stop controlled intersections to roundabouts will reduce all types of accidents, particularly injury accidents. And roundabouts will operate at a level of service a during both peak hours and 2047 at all four intersections. Urban roundabouts meet the Purpose and Need just like the full size roundabouts, where they differ is on the amount of impacts. The urban roundabouts have lower right of way impacts and no impacts to structures. This is an easy way to visualize the size difference. Between an urban roundabout and a full size roundabout. The urban roundabout is shown here in tan with red borders. This is the urban roundabout layered on top of the blue full size roundabout. The full size roundabout is much larger. The blue area of the full size roundabout shows the much larger footprint that reaches neighboring structures. The special design features of urban roundabouts include mountable curbs, shoulders and centers. You can see here how a semi tractor trailer can use the mountable sections to navigate through the intersection. The smaller design retains the benefits of reduced right angle crashes and traffic calming without the enlarged footprint of a standard roundabout. There are a few other alternatives in our analysis. Our analysis looks at shifting alignment of the urban roundabout design to create fewer 4f impacts, but doing so doesn’t meet current design standards. Another consideration is to make Madison and walnut one way pear streets to reduce traffic volume along Madison Street. Safety wouldn’t improve with this alternative, and the change in traffic patterns would require significant data collection and analysis to understand impacts that paired with the safety concerns, doesn’t meet the Purpose and Need. Finally, our analysis considers the closing of Hackley Street, this would likely cause the 2800 vehicles that travel through there each day to divert to other intersections, increasing right angle crashes at those intersections. Consideration for north, south connection to the school is also a concern for those reasons, closing Hackley doesn’t perform well on Purpose and Need. Here’s part of the reason roundabouts perform so well on safety. According to Indiana Department of Transportation analysis, roundabouts provide up to a 90% reduction in fatalities and a 76% reduction in injury crashes by design, a roundabout forces drivers to slow down and take more time to judge and react to other cars or pedestrians. The slower speed also gives an advantage to both mature and novice drivers, and it reduces the severity of crashes. Roundabouts have a 30 to 50% increase in traffic capacity and improve traffic flow for intersections that handle a high number of left turns. Another benefit is no signal equipment to install and repair. That’s an average savings of $5,000 per year in electricity and maintenance cost. Roundabouts also provide traffic calming, reduce congestion, pollution and fuel use. Sometimes
Change is hard, and especially construction is hard for people. Oftentimes there’s a little bit of heartache with having to do reroutes and things like that during construction processes. But generally, from what I’ve seen is at the end of the project, people are much happier. Traffic flows much better and and people, are generally happier with the intersection at the end,
here’s a look at our timeline. The environmental document should be complete and right of way. Acquisition is anticipated to begin in early 2026.
Project bidding is projected for early 2027
construction is anticipated to begin in mid 2027 work on section 106 consulting party coordination is set to begin soon. This is the important work of bringing the community together as we work to consider impacts to historic resources. We will also be reaching out to additional stakeholders to discuss the plan improvements and receive their feedback as a preferred alternative is selected, we will develop more detailed designs and present them at a public hearing, anticipated in late 2025 or early 2026 once the environmental process is further along, for more information, project resources are available at the ndot Greenfield district or at their website. You can also contact the transportation services call center for assistance. We appreciate you taking time to view this presentation. Please send us your written comments or recorded message to be included in the project record, thank you for your attention as we look to improve 32 you.