If you have been motoring along Allisonville Road the past few weeks, you have seen construction along that roadway and there will be more coming.
A trail beginning at Conner Prairie and heading south is nearly finished, according the City of Fishers Assistant Director of Engineering Hatem Mekky. The rain and unseasonable weather have not set the project back.
There will be a small gap in the trail’s connection to 131st Street, allowing for future construction in that area. The gap will be filled once the overall construction is complete.
However, there is more to come along that heavily-traveled street.
A planned widening of Allisonville Road was to have been under construction in 2019, but with other road projects planned (particularly the State Road 37 construction expected to begin in earnest in 2019) the Allisonville Road widening plans have been moved up and are projected to be complete by the end of 2018 (assuming no major construction delays). This will include improvements at 131st and 126th streets.
The Allisonville Road construction project should be bid in May, with construction starting in mid-summer.
“During the construction, there should be traffic maintained along Allisonville Road,” said Mekky. “[Expect] some limited closures, or some closures on 126th and 131st just to get those tie-ins and elevation differences going in. You will not have 126th and 131st [streets] closed at the same time.”
The tree removal project underway the past few weeks along Allisonville Road is to make way for the intersection improvements and lane expansion.
The trail along Allisonville Road is part of a plan to connect Conner Prairie with downtown Fishers.
“It will be really great for our residents to be able to just take their bike and ride safely to Conner Prairie, to visit their exhibits or go to Symphony on the Prairie,” Fishers City Director of Public Relations Ashley Elrod said. “I think it’s an exciting connection point.”
That trail connection from downtown Fishers to Conner Prairie should be available by the end of summer this year.
The trail connecting Conner Prairie and downtown Fishers was originally named the Nickel Plate Trail, but will be renamed. The planned trail along the Nickel Plate Rail Line is expected to receive the moniker of Nickel Plate Trail. That trail plan is awaiting a decision by the Federal Surface Transportation Board.
You can keep up-to-date on traffic in Fishers by visiting the Drive Fishers section of the city website at this link. If you are a Twitter user, you can get updates regularly by following @DriveFishers.