GOSHEN -- While the city recently got funding for a project that will effectively link U.S. 33 and S.R. 15 south of the city in a few years, plans to extend that link west to an eventually upgraded C.R. 17 face significant hurdles.
They're hurdles, though, that city officials plan to clear.
A traffic study done last year for the Goshen Redevelopment Commission recommended a new bridge that would line up the new South Link Road in Waterford Crossing with C.R. 140 west of the river.
The bridge idea isn't a new one, but more than a decade of discussions haven't warmed many agencies to the idea.
"We can only go by what information we've been given, and the information we've been provided" by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Indiana Division of Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service; "all three of those agencies have said that they will not approve a new crossing in the Waterford area unless it was deemed impossible to improve, upgrade or widen the C.R. 38 bridge," said Jeff Taylor with the county's highway department, which oversees bridges.
Letters from those three agencies in 2003 don't explicitly prohibit a new crossing in line with C.R. 140, but they aren't enthusiastic about it.
The Army Corps wrote, "from the information available to us, it appears that the C.R. 38 crossing would have a much smaller footprint of impact on wetland resources than would the C.R. 140 crossing." Additional permits would be required for a new bridge in line with the link road, and those would look at the alternative of just using C.R. 38's bridge.
The DNR wrote that it also prefers just using C.R. 38, and "The 'County Road 140' alternative will have the most detrimental effects on fish, wildlife and botanical resources."
The Fish and Wildlife Service wrote that it's possible to bridge the entire wetland, not just the river, but that would be more expensive.
"They're telling us that you need to keep your focus, Elkhart County, on C.R. 38, so that's what we're doing. I don't think it's a good expenditure of our tax dollars to fight that," Taylor said.
While Fish and Wildlife said repeatedly over several years that C.R. 38 and C.R. 40 are inadequate to serve the traffic needs on Goshen's south side, they suggested options that may not provide a realistic alternative for industrial traffic on the city's southeast side.
They suggested running traffic south on S.R. 15 to U.S. 6 and then over to the expanded C.R. 17, a prospect that would add significant miles and wouldn't be useful until C.R. 17 would be extended to U.S. 6.
They also suggested the possibility of a new or improved roadway in the New Paris area, something the county plans to do in a couple of decades, though that project could face stiff environmental requirements, too.
The city considered widening C.R. 38/Kercher Road in its south peripheral road project, but discarded the idea due to the expense of land acquisition and moving utilities.
City officials think the new bridge just makes sense to keep traffic moving on Goshen's south side.
City Engineer Mary Cripe said in order to build a bridge, "the city will work with all of the federal, state and county regulatory agencies to obtain the required permits, which may have strict requirements."
She pointed out that traffic studies dating back to the early 1970s have consistently called for a south peripheral road, and in 1996 the Goshen City Council adopted a plan that stipulated the road should be somewhere between C.R. 38 and C.R. 40.
The nearly complete first section of the road runs from the intersection of C.R. 40 and C.R. 27 and then moves north of C.R. 40 to an intersection with Regent Street.
It runs through land that's slated to become industrial land at some point in the future. It runs between a half-mile and a mile south of much of the existing industrial land on the city's south side.
The second segment, which just got federal funding for 80 percent of construction costs, will extend from Regent to S.R. 15 in Waterford Mills, just north of Schmucker Realty and in line with the dead-end C.R. 140 west of the river.
The third segment likely will upgrade C.R. 40 between U.S. 33 and C.R. 27. A bridge wouldn't come into the plans until the fourth phase of the road, at least as plans stand right now.