LAWRENCE, Ind. — Pendleton Pike can be a busy stretch of roadway in the city of Lawrence. So much so that it has seen several crashes, some of them fatal, in recent years.
INDOT says it’s time to address that problem and they are proposing a solution. They want to renovate the stretch between 56th street and 65th by putting in medians and other barriers to limit where you can make a left turn.
Lawrence police chief Gary Woodruff spoke at a public meeting about the plan and added some perspective of what they have seen with the crashes that have happened along Pendleton Pike.
“You can see from some of the examples here some crashes have occurred and we have had a few crash fatalities out there sadly,” Woodruff said. “Any improvements that can be made along this stretch of road in a reasonable way, I think, can be a good thing.”
But, some business owners do not see the project as a good thing. Debbie Hughes, who lives nearby, attended the public meeting and says she feels for business owners along the stretch.
“I think it’s going to be more of a headache than it’s going to be a benefit. This is the second time in 25 years that I’ve lived here that they have done construction on Pendleton Pike,” Hughes said. “With some of the pictures that I’m seeing of some of the medians that are going to go down there, I think it’s going to be more dangerous.”
She added that business owners and their customers would have to make U-Turns around the medians in order to get to their businesses. Other business owners at the meeting acknowledged that as well and express concern that they may lose customers because of that.
Construction on Pendleton Pike is not expected to start until at least 2024 and could last two years once it starts.
