HAMILTON COUNTY – A dangerous intersection in Hamilton County is getting some much-needed safety upgrades.
Nearly $9 million dollars is going to transform the intersection at 146th and Hazel Dell Parkway. The hope is to reduce the high number of crashes that happen in this area each year.
“It’s just a busy road,” Phillip Ngyuen from Hamilton County said.
Phillip Ngyuen goes out of his way each day to try and avoid using the 146th and Hazel Dell Parkway intersection.
“I tend to avoid that because I have almost gotten into a crash there,” he said.
Ngyuen is not alone. Many Hamilton County residents have expressed concerns over this intersection.
In fact, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization found this intersection to be one of the highest crash locations in the county. Between 2015 and 2019, data shows there were nearly 100 crashes reported here.
So the county’s solution is to completely change the layout of this intersection.
“It’ll be a roundabout, but it will also be an interchange,” Bradley Davis, the Hamilton County Highway Director, said. “146th street, which has a large amount of traffic, will go over a roundabout if you can get that concept in your head.”
This is a possible configuration of what the new $8.7 million dollar Roundabout interchange would look like:
County officials say there are several major benefits, like reducing both the number of crashes in the area and crash severity, increasing safety for pedestrians and bikers, and reducing fuel consumption to help the environment.
They say this is very much needed, especially with how much traffic there is in the area now and what they anticipate is coming in the next couple of years.
“With Hamilton County, we know people aren’t really leaving the county,” Davis said. “We have a lot of people coming to the county. We know this intersection is just going to get worse with congestion as we go forward.”
And for drivers like Nguyen, it’s a sign of relief that a popular intersection like this one is finally getting some big safety upgrades.
“It gives me peace of mind to know that Carmel and Noblesville are thinking about all of that and trying to improve public safety and improve the roads we drive on every day,” he said.
It’s still very early on in the design phase of the project, and construction is not scheduled to start until 2026.
