New crosswalks near schools and street repairs could be funded with tax dollars the town of Trafalgar has been collecting from new businesses.
The town set up its first tax-increment financing, or TIF, districts in 2007, and now has two, with one near the northeast corner of state roads 135 and 252 and the other at the northwest corner of State Road 135 and West County Road 400S.
The town began collecting property tax dollars from new businesses that located there and now has $219,000 in property taxes available to spend in 2018. In past years, the money has been spent on road paving projects. This year, town officials are considering adding crosswalks to the intersection of State Road 135 and State Road 252, a busy area for students at nearby Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson schools, and paying for road paving projects that are needed in the next year, town council member Jason Ramey said.
Work on the new crosswalk could begin as soon as this spring and officials hope to have the project done by the fall, before school starts again, Ramey said.
Students at Indian Creek High School often cross the state highway after school to get to shops and restaurants on the north side, but without crosswalks, pedestrians don’t have any safe ways to get across, Ramey said.
“It has scared me more than once to watch some kid cross that intersection on their own,” he said.
The town also is working with Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson Schools to get a crosswalk and signage put up on South County Road 300W, to allow students to safely cross over to the Crest Ridge Estates neighborhood on the east side of the road, a project the school may also assist in funding, Ramey said.
Ramey envisions the crosswalks as a first step in making the community more accessible for bicyclists and pedestrians, with sidewalks or trails connecting the school and library.
The town already has reached an agreement with the Indiana Department of Transportation to split the cost of the work to install the crosswalks at all but the west side of the intersection. The state will pay for installation of new signals for the crosswalk, while the town will cover paving and marking the crossings, which will need to be wheelchair accessible as well, Ramey said.
How much the work will cost isn’t known yet. The town is working to get bids, he said.
