INDOT Luncheon debuts new travel plans

ELKHART, Ind. -- Local business owners met with reps from the Indiana Department of Transportation Tuesday at the 30th Annual INDOT Luncheon to learn about new, major construction projects coming to Elkhart.

One key project will overhaul U.S. 20 in Elkhart County. They'll expand one area to 5 lanes, with two lanes in both directions and a center two-way left turn lane. In addition, INDOT is also adding a pedestrian crossing at the Spring Valley intersection. 

It's all part of a multi-million-dollar project that Hunter Petroviak with INDOT says is centered around safety.

“Were really looking at the big picture,” Petroviak says, “What the area looks like, what the needs are. If it's a safety thing maybe we add a turn lane. If it’s an increased amount of cars traveling through the area, then we’ll add travel lanes. And a lot of the things, too, that our engineers are looking at is even with safety and travel volumes. If we don’t do anything what the outlook looks like for that road and sometimes if we don't do anything it's going to get a lot worse; you're gonna see a lot of delays lot of backups.”

The Pumpkinvine Trail Tunnel in Elkhart County will also be extended, after being delayed from winter 2025 to winter 2027 to mitigate risks and bundle two projects into one.