A section of a busy commuter route will close for about two weeks this summer.
State Road 135, about a mile north of State Road 144, will close in both directions starting July 9 as crews replace a drainage pipe underneath the road.
That means about 11,000 vehicles per day will need to detour to other routes, including U.S. 31 and State Road 144, Indiana Department of Transportation spokesman Harry Maginity said.
The state has been planning the $181,000 project for months.
“It is at an age and condition where it needs to be replaced,” Maginity said. “We haven’t had any issues of any type of collapse, but it is at a point where we want to replace it before it runs into any of those issues.”
Crews will dig underneath the road, remove the old drainage pipe and install new and then repave the road. The work is expected to take about two weeks, but that depends on the weather, Maginity said.
If the work goes as planned, the road is set to reopen on July 23, he said.
State Road 135 was also under construction last summer, with crews repaving the road from State Road 144 to Stones Crossing Road and between Curry and County Line roads.
But this project is much smaller, with only a small section of the road closed.
The closure is just south of Bargersville Community Fire Department Station 201, which means the fire department will need to closely monitor the locations of where calls are coming in from, Bargersville Fire Chief Jason Ramey said.
If emergency workers have to respond to a call south of the station, they may send a fire truck or ambulance from another station or ask another local fire department for assistance to make sure help arrives as soon as possible, he said.
“We’ll err on the side of caution and seek help from additional resources,” Ramey said.
