Out of room for more lanes
INDOT looks for other solutions to clogged Borman Expressway traffic
The Indiana Department of Transportation has refined its plan to expand the Borman Expressway without physically rebuilding much of it, but the agency is still looking for public input.
Representatives from Centreville, Virginia-based Parsons Corp. joined INDOT representatives at Purdue Northwest to present their updated plans Tuesday for incorporating Transportation Systems and Management Operations, or TSMO, to the 14-mile Borman, which runs from the state line on the west to Interstate 65 on the east. They first presented the plan they named Flexroad in late July and have since incorporated public comment into the draft.
The Borman, officially known as Interstate 80-94 in Lake County is the state’s busiest stretch of road and supports an average of 160,000 vehicles per day, said Parsons Project Manager Dan Prevost, and at least 25% are trucks. Because the Borman, with four to five lanes on each side, cannot support adding more lanes, Parsons has constructed a TSMO that would be implemented using the current road, he said.
The plan for the Borman could incorporate any number of solutions, including dynamic shoulders, or opening up shoulders to traffic when traffic is heavy; variable speed limits, or harmonizing speed limits at various times of heavy traffic; ramp metering; or putting signals on on-ramps; queue warnings, which would tell people when to use other routes; work-zone management; and behind-the-scenes systems that would incorporate cameras that talk to each other quicker, which would then issue travel guidance quicker, said Craig Moore, principle engineer for Parsons’ Chicago group.
Each of the solutions provide a modicum of relief to the treacherous stretch of road. For example, using dynamic shoulders alone could save a commuter seven minutes of travel time, add 10 miles per hour to travel speed and reduce travelers’ time in their vehicles by 9%; ramp metering, on the other hand, would save three minutes of travel time but would reduce travel-related crashes and promote safer merging, Moore said in the presentation. As well, variable speeds could reduce travel times by 5% and reduce congestion-related crashes.
A combination of dynamic shoulders, ramp metering and variable speed limits, however, could shave off 8 minutes of travel time, add 11 miles per hour to travel speed, boost travel-time reliability by 23 minutes and reduce people’s time in their vehicles by 9%. But its cost would be between $55 million and $100 million to complete, versus the $45 million to $75 million it would
cost to implement dynamic shoulder lanes and ramp metering alone.
Another hot area Parsons examined is the southbound exit onto I-65, which is currently problematic at two lanes because of the bottlenecks it causes merging right. INDOT could construct a third exit lane there and fix the Broadway exit, Moore said.
It would be the only traditional construction of the project and would take about a construction season to complete, officials said.
“We’re not looking at A or B or C; we’re looking at what packages would work together the best while being mindful of the impacts they would cause,” Moore said.
Questions from the audience ranged from what vehicles cause the most accidents to the status of the proposed Illiana toll road near Lowell and its affect on the Borman study. Toward the former, Prevost said it’s not the vehicle but the time it takes to clean up an accident and trucks always take longer; and since there aren’t any plans for the Illiana to exist, it’s not a factor in the Borman Flexroad plan.
Another man asked if putting up higher barriers in the median might help with the dreaded gaper’s blocks that happen every time there’s an accident. Joe Brahm, vice president for the Chicago group, said it’s an idea, but not a particularly good one.
“Other places have done barriers, but it becomes a maintenance issue in the hardest place to deal with it,” Brahm said.
INDOT is accepting public comments on the Flexroad plan until Nov. 22; to view the plan and submit comments, log onto indianaflexroad.com.