City acquires land for Worthsville Road expansion

Worthsville Road is set to become a key east-west route for traffic in the future, but for now dead ends in both directions.

Heading east past Interstate 65, drivers hit a dead end. The only way to continue east to Shelbyville is to detour to another route, using other county roads.

And heading west, past U.S. 31, the road ends and drivers have to take a county road south to the next main road.

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But officials want that to change in the next few years. Both Greenwood and Johnson County are planning projects that would improve existing section of Worthsville Road, extend the road east to connect with Clark School Road and west a connector road will be built to connect with Stones Crossing Road.

Up first, is work to the east side.

The Greenwood Redevelopment Commission approved purchasing land east of I-65 to make room for expanding Worthsville Road. The city plans to purchase seven acres from nine property owners. The land has been appraised at about $115,000, and offers are being extended to the owners, city officials said.

Worthsville Road will remain two lanes east of I-65, but the project will allow the lanes to be widened, to add paved shoulders to the sides and to put in a sidewalk for pedestrians and bicyclists on the south side of the road, Greenwood City Engineer Mark Richards said.

Funding for the $2.5 to $3 million city portion of the project will come from the city’s east side tax-increment financing, or TIF, district, he said.

Construction would begin in the spring or summer of 2017, depending on how long it takes for the city to acquire the land, Richards said.

East of Griffith Road, Johnson County will be responsible for connecting Worthsville Road to Clark School Road. A little over a mile of farmland separates the two roads, and connecting them would pave the way for an east to west route connecting Johnson and Shelby counties, officials have said.

The county is working to acquire land for the project, but progress is at a standstill right now, as the county is negotiating with Duke Energy about how many power poles will have to be moved, Johnson County Commissioner Ron West said.

While state funding has been secured for the project, they won’t have a final estimate for how much the work will cost until negotiations with Duke Energy are complete, he said.