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The Boone County Commissioners’ and Boone County Highway Department’s schedules are already in high gear looking at completing and commencing existing and new county projects throughout the 2022 new year. Commissioners Tom Santelli and Jeff Wolfe, along with Boone County Highway Department Director Nick Parr, shared details on some of the county’s most significant projects.
The Boone County Highway Department has several projects that are in various stages of development and/or construction. The projects can be categorized into Bridge, Expansion & Safety and Maintenance projects.
The Boone County Highway Department is responsible for the 191 bridges that have a span of 20 or more feet on all roads in Boone County that are not state highways. Every two years, inspections are performed on every bridge structure, and a project priority list is developed based on the conditions found during these inspections and available funding. The highway department recently updated the inventory of small structures (<20 ft) and through $5.3mm in bonds have accelerated the replacement and repair of these smaller structures.
Bridge Projects
Bridge rehabilitations and replacements require structural analysis and the preparation of detailed design plans. These projects are typically much more expensive and often require the county to leverage federal funding to offset the design and/or construction costs. When federal funding is utilized, the project development process takes much more time due to the additional requirements and approvals that must be met with the expenditure of federal funding. The link below highlights the bridge projects that are already in or will soon be in the project development process: https://boonecounty.in.gov/offices/highway/projects/bridge-projects/.
Expansion and Safety Projects
Road expansion projects include improvements such as new roadways on new alignment, reconstruction of existing roadways and projects where travel lanes are being added (e.g., upgrade from two lanes to four). Road safety projects involve work such as intersection upgrades and curve corrections.
These projects are more expensive than road maintenance and surface treatment projects and often require the county to leverage state or federal funding to offset the design and/or construction costs. When federal funding is utilized, the project development process takes much more time due to the additional requirements and approvals that must be met with the expenditure of federal funding. The link below highlights the road expansion and safety projects that are already in or will soon be in the project development process: https://boonecounty.in.gov/offices/highway/projects/road-expansion-safety-projects/.
Roadway Conversion Program
The Boone County transportation network includes over 300 miles of gravel roadways. Although it would be nice to convert all the gravel roadways to a hard surface, the county does not have the resources available to do so. We will be looking at the potential funds which may come available through HR 3684.
The Highway Department developed a formal road conversion program in 2018.
Their funds are limited, and the need is much greater than their resources. Therefore, a formal application process utilizing a systematic decision tool was developed to help the department identify the best candidate roadways for conversion from gravel to hard surface. This decision tool will calculate a roadway’s “conversion score” based on several criteria that are important to evaluate when considering hard surfacing a roadway.
The Highway Department has identified several top candidate roadways for conversion and developed an initial conversion list; however, a major component of the Highway Department’s conversion program includes an opportunity for Boone County residents to submit road conversion requests/applications for their roadway to be scored and added to the master conversion list.
Applications and additional info can be located at https://boonecounty.in.gov/offices/highway/roadway-conversion-program/.
The Highway Department has identified several top candidate roadways for conversion and developed an initial conversion list; however, a major component of the Highway Department’s conversion program includes an opportunity for Boone County residents to submit road conversion requests/applications for their roadway to be scored and added to the master conversion list.
Applications and additional info can be located at https://boonecounty.in.gov/offices/highway/roadway-conversion-program/.
President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill
When asked what impact the president’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill will have on local county projects, Wofle replied, “We don’t know yet. When you start taking the amount and dividing the amount by a number of state governments and municipalities, that really isn’t a very big number. So, do I expect the availability of significant funding through HR 3684 or the Infrastructure and Jobs Act which passed into law 11/15 2021 and became Public Law No. 117-58. We need to be prepared for this, but everything at the federal level comes with a price. There’s matching dollars and federal requirements. We’ve got a long way to go before we know what this infrastructure bill is going to really mean to Boone County.” We will ensure our projects are far enough along to take advantage of the new funding as this comes available to us.
Wolfe continued, “What I would expect to see [in this infrastructure bill] are some larger pieces of this set aside for economic development types of infrastructure projects—meaning roads and bridges—that have a significant impact on a local economic development areas.”
For Indiana we expect:
$6.6 billion in highway improvements
$401 million for bridge replacement and repairs
$682 million for improving public transportation across the state
$300 million for electric charging stations across the state
$100 million to help improve broadband access
Bridges, Small Structures and Broadband
Wolfe stated, “A couple of really significant things to remember going forward is that we are addressing those small structures that are weight rated and width restricted, and that’s what our bonds did last year. Additional significant projects that Nick [Parr] is planning are some [road] conversion programs for next year—converting gravel roads to paved roads.”
Santelli added, “The bigger projects that are going to impact our area is INDOT is going to completely redo the I-865 corridor, going as far as U.S. 31. They have just started the engineering work.
This project will have a major impact in our area, and I’m on that team and have talked with INDOT specifically about the Michigan Road [U.S. 421] interchange with I-465. That interchange is currently in need of significant updating, so INDOT is taking a harder look at that with my input.”
The county is working from a BF&S civil engineering study that detailed all the county’s infrastructure needs over the next five to 10 years.
“We found through this study that our [county’s] biggest needs are bridges and small structures,” Parr said. “That was addressed at the County Council meetings, as well as the need for a substantial funding increase in order to get [to] many of these structures—which are too narrow for agricultural equipment to get across or are weight rated so they are not safe enough or strong enough for agricultural equipment or loaded semis to drive across.”
While federal aid dollars are available for these types of local infrastructure projects, they are matched 80-20, so the county has to provide 20% of the project’s cost.
“The BF&S study also recommended that we [the county] continue to use mechanisms such as the Community Crossings Matching Grant (CCMG),” Parr added. “The state will fund 50% of the construction of the project. Additionally, the Boone County council issued $5.3 million in bonds in 2020, and we intend to renew those bonds when they are paid off in 2025, 2026 and 2027. This will allow us to bring those weight-rated and width-restricted structures up to current standards.”
Parr shared that the county is currently working with utility companies on the Templin Road bridge project in Zionsville. Trees have been removed from the project site so that utilities can be relocated, and the project is expected to begin April 1, 2022, weather permitting and assuming the utility companies complete their relocation work. This will be a full road closure while they replace that structure and is expected to last up to 120 days.
In addition to repairing/replacing small structures and bridges throughout the county, the commissioners are laser-focused on expanding the county’s broadband services to the rural areas.
“With the distribution of ARPA [American Rescue Plan Act] funds, we [Boone County] set aside $2 million for pushing the broadband effort into the Sugar Creek area,” Santelli explained. “We are working with Charter—which is Spectrum—to deliver a 10-to-one or as much as a 20-to-one impact. So, that means for $250,000, we will get $2.5 million, to $5.0 million of work done for broadband [services]. Charter is working with Boone REMC for the pole connects because most of what Charter is doing now is all aerial fiber optics.”
Santelli stated that broadband is becoming much like an electric, gas or water utility. “Broadband has become an essential service,” Santelli said. “So, what’s happening is the federal government has money that they are giving to these [service providers] and are funding programs through the states not only for the [service] connections but also for programs that provide basic broadband service to those who qualify for less than $10 a month. There’s a sliding scale on affordability and things like that, and then there’s also the ability to get the hardware at little to no cost. So, [broadband] companies are working on programs like that too. We [the county] can incentivize these companies to give them a bigger reach, if you will. Currently, we’re incentivizing Charter, and we’re in the middle of evolving right now as we move through this.”
The county is working from a BF&S civil engineering study that detailed all the county’s infrastructure needs over the next five to 10 years.
“We found through this study that our [county’s] biggest needs are bridges and small structures,” Parr said. “That was addressed at the County Council meetings, as well as the need for a substantial funding increase in order to get [to] many of these structures—which are too narrow for agricultural equipment to get across or are weight rated so they are not safe enough or strong enough for agricultural equipment or loaded semis to drive across.”
While federal aid dollars are available for these types of local infrastructure projects, they are matched 80-20, so the county has to provide 20% of the project’s cost.
“The BF&S study also recommended that we [the county] continue to use mechanisms such as the Community Crossings Matching Grant (CCMG),” Parr added. “The state will fund 50% of the construction of the project. Additionally, the Boone County council issued $5.3 million in bonds in 2020, and we intend to renew those bonds when they are paid off in 2025, 2026 and 2027. This will allow us to bring those weight-rated and width-restricted structures up to current standards.”
Parr shared that the county is currently working with utility companies on the Templin Road bridge project in Zionsville. Trees have been removed from the project site so that utilities can be relocated, and the project is expected to begin April 1, 2022, weather permitting and assuming the utility companies complete their relocation work. This will be a full road closure while they replace that structure and is expected to last up to 120 days.
In addition to repairing/replacing small structures and bridges throughout the county, the commissioners are laser-focused on expanding the county’s broadband services to the rural areas.
“With the distribution of ARPA [American Rescue Plan Act] funds, we [Boone County] set aside $2 million for pushing the broadband effort into the Sugar Creek area,” Santelli explained. “We are working with Charter—which is Spectrum—to deliver a 10-to-one or a 20-to-one impact. So, that means for $250,000, we will get $4 million of work done for broadband [services]. Charter is working with Boone REMC for the pole connects because most of what Charter is doing now is all fiber optics.”
Santelli stated that broadband is becoming much like an electric, gas or water utility.
“Broadband has become an essential service,” Santelli said. “So, what’s happening is the federal government has money that they are giving to these [service providers] and are funding programs through the states not only for the [service] connections but also for programs that provide basic broadband service to those who qualify for less than $10 a month. There’s a sliding scale on affordability and things like that, and then there’s also the ability to get the hardware at little to no cost. So, [broadband] companies are working on programs like that too. We [the county] can incentivize these companies to give them a bigger reach, if you will. Currently, we’re incentivizing Charter, and we’re in the middle of evolving right now as we move through this.”