INDIANAPOLIS — For the third straight summer, the Broad Ripple Village has a major construction project happening on its roads.
The Westfield Boulevard Bridge has been shut down over the Central Canal since January. When FOX59/CBS4 first reported the project, the Indianapolis Department of Public Works said the closure would reopen after 100 days in mid-April.
Sitting on May 2, and the bridge structure is finished but the road is nowhere near ready for cars, as gravel covers the flat surface above the bridge.
”It’s been a pain in the rear end,” said Mary Starkey, a six-year Broad Ripple resident who was walking on the Monon Trail on Thursday.
The Central Canal was drained earlier this year to allow DPW to completely replace the bridge. Citizens Energy Group also took advantage of the empty canal to clean out some of the muck, and other items.
Now, the water is back to flowing and the animals that call it home have settled back in.
”It looks better than it did, it looks safer,” said Leslie Dolin, the owner of Monon Coffee Company. “It’s nice to have water back in the canal.”
Dolin’s shop is right around the corner from the Westfield Boulevard construction in the Broad Ripple Village. FOX59/CBS4 first talked to Dolin when the bridge project was announced in December. At the time, BR business owners were still recovering from two years of construction along Broad Ripple Avenue.
”I think we were all panicked like, ‘Here we go again.’ What’s going to happen? We’re barely making it now,” Dolin said, talking to FOX59/CBS4 again on Thursday.
With heavy construction still closing the bridge more than two weeks before its original date to partially reopen, neighbors said they’re used to the delays.
”Any more you just have to roll with it, because your only alternative is to move out of the neighborhood,” Starkey said.
Corey Ohlenkamp, a public information officer with Indy DPW, said the delay came from under the water.
“When we got down and brought the bridge all the way down to the base supports, the footers, that we call them, in the base of the canal, they were in more rough shape than we initially anticipated, so that added on some extra construction time,” Ohlenkamp said.
Since this unanticipated snag was underwater, Ohlenkamp said it’s tough to predict and the best they can do is an educated guess.
The good news – Dolin said the business impact hasn’t been too noticeable for her sales at the Monon Coffee Company.
”I think there is enough traffic flow in the neighborhood that it really hasn’t affected us too bad,” Dolin said.
But, that doesn’t mean business owners and neighbors wouldn’t have preferred to have the bridge partially reopened in mid-April like in the original plan. The Broad Ripple Village will now enter a third straight summer with a major construction project.
”It’s never-ending,” Dolin said. “I’m honestly waiting for that to be done and waiting to see what they drop on us next.”
Ohlenkamp said he does not believe there is another serious DPW project happening in Broad Ripple in the foreseeable future.
Ohlenkamp said crews are on track right now to reopen the Westfield Boulevard bridge partially in the next 30 days, barring any further delays.
That would line up with one of the biggest events of the year in Broad Ripple, the Duck Race. Hundreds of rubber ducks will be dropped in the Central Canal at the Monon Pedestrian Bridge, right next to the Westfield Boulevard Bridge. Folks are hoping the bridge is at least partially reopened before that big crowd comes into the village on June 1.
DPW said the Westfield Boulevard Bridge should be entirely back open with the project complete this fall.
Comments are closed.