TWELVE MILE — The Indiana Department of Transportation says a project to widen Ind. 16 east of Twelve Mile should be under way by the summer of 2010.

Supporters of the project, though, say they’ll believe it when they see it.

Joshua Bingham, spokesman for INDOT, said the project would include resurfacing and shoulder rehabilitation on the five-mile stretch of highway.

“Right now, we are purchasing the right of way for the road,” Bingham said. “Each lane will be nine to ten feet wide which is a standard lane width. In any sections where it is too close, the lane will be made to standard with the shoulders corrected.”

The current roadway has lanes seven to eight feet wide that leave little room for oncoming traffic to yield to an oversized vehicle. In some areas it is next to impossible for two semis to pass without clashing mirrors.

Elsewhere, several sharp dips at a section of the road laid, and re-laid, over a peat bog reflect years of neglect. The edge of the roadway is also severely eroded from semis and trucks driving outside the white lines to avoid collisions.

Local dairy farmer Arie de Jong hopes the road will be upgraded sooner rather than later.

De Jong estimates that roughly 10,000 trucks a year use Ind. 16 to get to his business, Providence Dairy, which is a mile north of the highway.

“I’m not any different than anyone else in our community who believes that improving the road would be a great benefit,” de Jong said. “That road is not safe and needs widening because it is so narrow.”

The estimated $2.6 million cost of the project will be paid with 80 percent federal funding and 20 percent from state taxes.

INDOT anticipates construction will begin in July 2010 once environmental and archaeological studies of the area have been completed and local residents have their say on what the project might include and how the final road should look.

Bingham said a public hearing on the project would be scheduled in mid-2009.

“What the public says could change the plan,” Bingham said. “At that stage it will be 30 percent complete but local concerns about issues that we are not aware of like, for example, an old tree that has some historical importance could change it. It’s the smarter way to complete it up to 30 percent. If you set everything to be in place but then ask for public input, everything could change.”

Local residents, however, remain skeptical about the project and frustrated by INDOT’s failure to refer to past surveys and studies that they argue gave the same results.

They say improvements and upgrades to Ind. 16 have been promised in various forms since 1952 but never delivered

Richard Arthur, who lives on Ind. 16, east of Twelve Mile, said residents were assured in the early 1980s that the road would be widened and complete by 1985 and again in 2001.

Arthur is still waiting.

“After a meeting in October, we were told they were starting to buy land which they need to go through the county courts,” he said. “But when I called the courts to ask if they had been contacted, they didn’t know what I was talking about.

“They need to understand that they need to get serious about this. If they start in 2010 and complete it in 2011, that is another three years from now. It needs to be done now.”

Fred Easter, another local resident who has campaigned hard for the widening project, said that if INDOT looked it could find past environmental and archaeological surveys that might save valuable time.

“Unless they are looking for Indian grave sites from the past 15 years, they are not going to find any,” he said.

Easter added that he felt frustrated that attention had turned to the Hoosier Heartland while Ind. 16 remains in terrible condition.

“They say they are going to finish the Hoosier Heartland in five years and here it takes them four years to do five miles,” Easter said. “Logansport to Lafayette in five years with bridges and all this. INDOT are really dragging their feet.”

Bingham defended the apparent delays.

“All the times and dates we set are anticipated dates,” he said. “They are anticipated dates for an important reason because things always come up that delay the process. It is going to happen.”

He added that projects like Ind. 16 usually have a three- to four-year window in which they will be completed. He said evaluations and surveys take a great deal of time to complete before construction is even considered

At present, INDOT has no construction window in place for Ind. 16.

One area that might cause a delay is buying the necessary land for the road’s expansion. At least one landowner has expressed opposition to the project.

Bingham said if the state and adjoining landowners cannot come to terms, the issue could wind up in court.

“People can say no, but ultimately it will be the court that decides,” Bingham said.

Kevin Smith can be contacted at (574) 732-5148 or via e-mail at kevin.smith@pharostribune.com