INDOT still has roundabouts on drawing board for East Central Neighborhood on old Ind. 32

David Penticuff, Muncie Star Press
·3 min read

MUNCIE, Ind. — As of now, the state plans to install four roundabouts in the city along what used to be Ind. 32.

The proposed locations of the roundabouts are at Jackson and Madison streets, Main and Madison streets, Jackson and Hackley streets and Main and Hackley streets, said Adam Leach, city engineer and street superintendent.

Muncie City Council members say they will find out more about plans for roundabouts being planned for Jackson and Main streets intersections with Madison and Hackley. The city says the state had plans for the roundabouts before it turned over responsibility for Ind. 32 to the Muncie Street Department.
Muncie City Council members say they will find out more about plans for roundabouts being planned for Jackson and Main streets intersections with Madison and Hackley. The city says the state had plans for the roundabouts before it turned over responsibility for Ind. 32 to the Muncie Street Department.

Leach said the projects are still in early stages with actual construction work probably two or three years away.

Plans for the roundabouts were developed by the Indiana Department of Transportation before the state agreed last year to turn over control of Ind. 32 to the city of Muncie. The highway became Muncie's responsibility in order to allow the city to complete work involving the White River levee near the Jackson Street bridge.

The state did not want to participate in that work, Leach said last June, so the highway inside Muncie was turned over to the city. Jackson and Main streets, as well as Kilgore Avenue, were included in the streets that made up the highway in the city.

More: Indiana 32 handed over to city due to levee work on Eastside as thoroughfare soon to be remade

The roundabouts were part of INDOT's plans to change the streets' configuration, which included efforts to slow the heavily traveled thoroughfare moving east and west through Muncie, Leach said. The city agreed to allow the state to complete the planned changes to Jackson and Main streets after the former highway was conveyed to Muncie.

The changes include slowing traffic on Kilgore Avenue, Jackson and Main streets and making the roads all one lane in the city with bike lanes and on-street parking in some places.

The matter was discussed at city council this week after Russell Irving, a resident of the East Central Neighborhood Association, spoke, telling council members he found a surveyor in his front yard last week and asked what he was doing. Irving said the surveyor told him he was measuring water runoff and the effect it would have a planned roundabout being constructed "right off the back corner of my property."

The surveyor told Irving there were plans for four roundabouts in the neighborhood.

"He said he didn't know how they could be built without removal or 'adverse effect' on structures in my neighborhood," Irving told council.

More: Roundabout planned at scene of eastside Muncie crash

Irving also claimed to be representing the Emily Kimbrough Historic District, which also will be impacted by the construction. He went door-to-door after seeing the surveyor in his year to see if he could find anyone who knew anything about plans for the roundabout, and only one person told him Mayor Dan Ridenour had mentioned it but had no details.

Another of Irving's neighbor upset about the prospect of the roundabouts found minutes of a Muncie Board of Works meeting in April 2023 that mentioned roundabouts in the East Central Neighborhood.

"That was 11 months ago and this is the first I've heard of it," Irving said.

More: 2024 city budget includes pay raises and state money for Ind. 32 deal

Irving said he and people in the neighborhood are alarmed and upset.

"We feel like we've been kept in the dark intentionally," he said.

Leach did not attend the council meeting. On Tuesday he said the process had just started to determine whether or not the roundabouts would be feasible.

He said the state first proposed five roundabouts in the area and wanted to take action for safety reasons because a lot of crashes occur at the intersections being studied.

Any of the roundabouts would be smaller because the streets will be narrowed to one lane before before being built.

Any changes to Ind. 32 that were already in the works by INDOT before the highway was handed to the city, including prospective roundabouts, will be handled by INDOT and paid for by the state, Leach said.

Council members said they didn't know about plans for roundabouts in that neighborhood either, and they would talk with Mayor Dan Ridenour and the city administration about the situation.

David Penticuff is a reporter with The Star Press. He can be contacted at dpenticuff@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Residents discover INDOT plans for roundabouts in city neighborhoods