By Sam Elliott
Approximately 5.2 miles of Fishers neighborhood roads will be resurfaced in the coming months.
The Fishers Dept. of Engineering has awarded the resurfacing contract and work is expected to begin soon and be completed by the beginning of July. The city’s road conditions were assessed prior to the winter and reevaluated recently as temperatures began to rise.
“On our first contract we’ve identified two specific areas we felt were needing a lot of attention,” Assistant Director of Engineering Jason Taylor said. “The one area is the Gray Eagle subdivision and then the other area is the various subdivisions located near Harrison Thompson Park.”
The Gray Eagle subdivision roads to receive work include Gray Eagle Drive, Duval Drive at Cottonwood Creek and the Bluffs at Gray Eagle as well as streets to the east of Gray Eagle Drive within Links at Gray Eagle and to the west of Gray Eagle Drive within Woods at Gray Eagle.
Other roads slated for resurfacing include Lantern Road in the Cottingham Estates subdivision, Harrison Parkway in the Harrison Green subdivision, Conner Knoll Parkway in the Conner Knoll, Harrison Green and Harrison Woods subdivisions and New Britton Road in the New Britton Commercial Park.
“We’ll basically rip out all the pavement in a 15-by-100-foot section along the road stretch and we’ll repave that and resurface the whole road,” Taylor said. “In addition, we make sure if any sidewalks or curb ramps aren’t up to (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance, we’ll update those as part of the project.”
The city uses an industry-wide standard of rating its roads called PASER, which scores streets on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being best.
“You identify cracking and different failure types in general,” Taylor said. “These were in the lower range. Some of them were in the 3s and some of them were in 4s. We do everything we can to not let a road get to a 1 or 2.”
No roads will ever be fully closed as part of the resurfacing work, although workers will need to establish lane restrictions at certain times. Residents can learn more at fishers.in.us/drivefishers, and Taylor recommended signing up to receive the city’s Drive Fishers alerts via the Fishers Alerts section of the website.
“We post that weekly and this will be part of that,” he said. “We’re requiring the contractor to give us notification of which roads they’re working on a week prior so we can notify the residents. We’re also coordinating with the (homeowners’ associations) on this so they’re well aware and can push out notifications to their residents and we’ve required the contractor to put door hangers on residents’ doors to let them know that there’s going to be work going on.”
