About three dozen families living in a subdivision south of the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds are finding themselves isolated from the outside world through either natural or man-made circumstances.
Bartholomew County commissioner Carl Lienhoop brought up his concerns Monday about residents of Dawson Street, which serves as the only entrance in and out of the Van Blaricum subdivision, located west of State Road 11 outside the Columbus city limits.
During their weekly meeting, commissioners Larry Kleinhenz and Rick Flohr agreed there are unique safety concerns for Dawson Street residents.
One factor that makes Dawson different from other dead-end streets is the railroad crossing at the subdivision’s entrance off Jonesville Road, Lienhoop said.
Trains currently stop and block all access to the subdivision three or four times a week, Dawson Street resident Christina Kern said.
“People are being delayed from going to work and, in a couple of instances, have lost their job over a stuck train,” Kern wrote in a Letter to the Editor published in Saturday’s Republic.
The fact that more trains are expected on those tracks in the future will make the problem worse, Kern wrote.
Kern isn’t the first person to express concerns about the situation for Dawson Street residents. In May 2015, the day-long closing of Dawson for railroad repairs prompted immediate concern from Ed Reuter, who at the time was Bartholomew County emergency operations director.
That left ambulances and fire trucks, if needed, unable to make their way in or out of the subdivision, Reuter said.
Further complicating the matter is that the county commissioners have no authority to force a railroad to provide any type of access.
“The railroad will remind you that it’s not a matter of their train crossing our road,” Kleinhenz said Monday. “It’s a matter of our road that crosses their tracks.”
Another unique safety concern arose after new rails for high-speed trains were laid across Dawson last year, Lienhoop said.
When the work was completed, the approach to the tracks was left steeper than it had previously been, the commissioner said.
“You can’t see over the hood of your car when you crest and go back down,” Lienhoop said.
These conditions would never have been allowed under modern ordinances and regulations, city-county planner Jeff Bergman told the commissioners. The road was built sometime prior to 1913, when the existence of Dawson Street first appeared in newspaper accounts.
While acknowledging the problem is one thing, Lienhoop said there’s isn’t any cheap and easy fix to address the accessibility problem.
One solution would be to extend Dawson Street west to County Road 150W to provide an alternate entrance and exit to the subdivision, Lienhoop said. But that would involve building a bridge over Denios Creek and extending the road through a large amount of agricultural land.
The second would be to construct a new road running south from Dawson to Denoise Street in Bethel Village, the commissioner said.
While the second option is shorter, it also would involve building bridges over both a creek and a large legal drain, as well as a new road through a flood plain, Lienhoop said.
Such a route would also likely run into resistance from residents of Bethel Village, Lienhoop said.
With the possibility of litigation, it may be in the best interest of county government to start finding answers, Lienhoop said.
