County Road 325S remains closed; future uncertain

A half-mile road that connects Hensley Township to Franklin and Trafalgar remains closed after it was barricaded last year.

County officials closed West County Road 325S in May due to cracked pavement and the crumbling of the creek bed of South Prong Stotts Creek that runs alongside the road.

But residents are impatiently waiting for the road to open. Earlier this month, someone broke one of the barricades on the road, leaving enough space to allow a car to drive through, Hensley Township resident Betty Willis said.

In addition to driving miles out of their way to get to Beech Grove Baptist Church, which is on the corner of West County Road 325S and South County Road 575W, motorists have to drive nearly 2 miles out of the way to State Road 44 to get to the rest of Johnson County.

County officials are unsure what it will cost to fix the road, Johnson County Highway Director Luke Mastin said. Since December, the highway department has not had an engineer on staff, so studying the upgrades needed to repair the creek bed and pavement has been on hold, he said.

The road remains closed, and no repairs have been made since it was closed last year, he said.

Due to the limited amount of traffic on that road, it may not be cost effective to do the work needed, Johnson County Commissioner Ron West said.

Once the highway department has an estimate of the cost to fix the road, the commissioners will decide whether to close that road permanently or make the repairs, Mastin said.