Two different sections of State Road 11 — one located near Columbus and the other near Jonesville — will be closed to traffic just a few weeks apart this summer.
Earlier this month, the Indiana Department of Transportation confirmed a quarter-mile stretch of State Road 11, between Jonathan Moore Pike and Garden City, will be closed during the entire month of June. The four-week closure will allow crews to carry out road work on the $35 million railroad overpass project.
The highway is expected to be reopened about a week-and-a-half before opening day of the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair, which runs from July 10-18.
But one day after the fair closes, crews will shut down the highway again — this time in a rural area north of the Jackson-Bartholomew County line.
The second closure of State Road 11, which will take place about a mile-and-a-half north of Jonesville, is necessary for the replacement of a culvert and possibly a small bridge, Bartholomew County Commissioners chairman Carl Lienhoop said.
The highway will be off-limits to traffic for about two-and-a-half weeks from July 19 through Aug. 5, Lienhoop said.
Normal culvert repair are often handled by the use of a slip liner, which is essentially a new, smaller piece of pipe that slips into the larger piece.
But every time this type of easy, low-tech repair is done, it substantially decreases the size of the culvert, as well as the amount of water it can carry, commissioner Larry Kleinhenz said.
“Apparently, this (culvert) is so bad that they’ll have to dig the old one out, and put a new box culvert in,” Kleinhenz said.
In many cases, INDOT detours add miles to a trip because, by law, the official detour can only utilize state and federal highways. In this case, the official detour would involve State Road 46 and Interstate 65, as well as State Road 11.
The unofficial detour is much shorter. From the north, it takes traffic off State Road 11 at County Road 850S, and carries it west to Base Road. Vehicles would then go south on Base Road until they take a left at County Road 950S, which takes them straight into Jonesville.
But Lienhoop offered a small warning about the shorter route.
“The unofficial detour is not on very good county roads,” Lienhoop said. “Let’s just hope we have a good dry spell when it’s a detour.”
