A van travels north on Nineveh Road/Airport Road near the Airport Road-County Road 200 South intersection Tuesday south of Franklin. The section of Airport Road from U.S. 31 to County Road 300 South is one of several rural roads in need of improvements.
NOAH CRENSHAW | DAILY JOURNAL
Johnson County officials need to come up with $390.4 million to pay for road improvements.
From Interstate 69 access roads to aging concrete streets in subdivisions, Johnson County has a long list of road projects. However, the county has a funding shortfall and needs to come with hundreds of millions to pay for projects that need to be completed in the next five years, according to a report from the county highway department.
Preparing for I-69
One area that needs attention is the area around the future I-69, which is being built in the path of State Road 37 in western Johnson County. The interstate is expected to have a significant impact on traffic patterns and volumes in the county. It also is expected to put an increased burden on future access roads County Road 144 and Smith Valley Road. It has eliminated several access points on SR 37, including Fairview, Stones Crossing and Travis roads, according to a report prepared by the county highway department.
Morgantown Road will become the only north-south road in the area that connects CR 144, Smith Valley Road and County Line Road. It also will see increased traffic due to growth in Bargersville, and traffic on State Road 135, the report says.
Officials plan to add travel lanes on Smith Valley Road and CR 144 — a high-priority project. Other priorities include, but are not limited to, reconstructing and possibly widening Morgantown Road, extending Mullinix Road north of Smith Valley Road to connect to Bluff Road, and creating a new road between Stones Crossing and Olive Branch roads, according to the report.
More than $211 million is needed to accomplish all of the high-priority I-69 projects. A road impact fee on new development between I-69 and Whiteland Road along CR 144 was recommended as a funding source, however, the growth needed to make the fee profitable would not happen until after the interstate project is complete, the report says.
Reconstructing concrete streets
Another top priority need is concrete streets reconstruction in older construction subdivisions. The county has over 32 miles of concrete, or concrete with an asphalt overlay. Most of the concrete streets are nearing the end of their useful lives due to age or damage resulting from inadequate drainage, streets, the report says.
Most of the streets were not installed with underdrain systems, preventing the material underneath the road from drying out when exposed to water, which eventually caused damage. Minor repairs are not enough to fix these issues and a full reconstruction is needed, including installing underdrains, according to the report.
Last year, the county highway department conducted a visual analysis of neighborhood concrete streets, excluding those that have an asphalt overlay. The roads were analyzed on a 1-to-4 scale, with a score of 1 meaning reconstruction was recommended within 1-3 years and a score of 4 meaning reconstruction was not recommended within the next 10 years.
Of the 27 neighborhoods analyzed, the majority received a score of three — reconstruction recommended within five to 10 years. Six subdivisions received a score of 4, seven received a score of 2 and four received a score of 1, the report shows.
The cost of reconstruction for the roads that received a score between 1 to 3 is more than $35.5 million, based on average costs incurred during the county’s 2021 contracts. The report recommends that the county use contractors to get the work done, as it would be faster. The county could keep the repairs within the highway department to save money, however, this is limited due to the availability of resources, the report says.
Traffic strains roads, bridges
Another high-priority need is a county-wide road project to address the increased traffic volumes on rural county roads. For example, the Clark School Road connector project will create a truck traffic route between Interstates 74 and 65. One section has been completed and another has been selected for $1.05 million in federal funding in 2026, leaving an estimated $13.03 million unfunded for the section between CR 440 East and CR 750 East. Until Clark School Road is complete, other rural roads will see high traffic volumes, the report says.
Over a dozen separate projects have been identified, including projects on CR 300 South, Airport Road, Hurricane Road and Nineveh Road, among others. All of the projects would involve widening the roads, adding shoulders and addressing sight distance issues created by curves. The rural road projects are expected to cost over $126.6 million, the report says.
Several rural bridges are also in need of work. Most of the priority bridge and culvert projects have received federal funding, however, there are nine priority bridge and culvert projects that have not yet received funding — more than $9 million in work, according to the report. The bridges are recommended for replacement in 2026 and 2027, while the culverts do not have a set date, the report shows.
The money problem
In the past, the county has relied on federal and state grants to assist with funding capital road projects, using savings balances to match federal funds for smaller projects, said Luke Mastin, highway department director.
The county currently has around $7.7 million saved in these funds, however, all of these funds have been committed for other projects. Accounting for all committed projects, the county has set aside more than $7.9 million in projects, a more than $204,000 deficit, according to the report.
The county has used savings balances to cover the projects because they often cost more than what the county can afford. The balances have also allowed the county to maximize the funding available for the annual road maintenance program. But now the county has reached the point where all of the funds have been allocated to other projects, Mastin said.
This means that if the county were to apply for additional federal grants and needed a local match, the funds would need to come out of other budgets. These cuts would likely lower the amount available for the county’s annual road maintenance programs, the report says.
The other option is to identify another funding source for local costs, Mastin said.
No immediate solution
The county is at a crossroads for road and bridge project funding and needs an additional funding source, the report concludes. County officials are aware of the need, but it’s too early to tell where the funding will come from, officials say.
After Mastin presented his report to the board of commissioners and the county council on March 14, both discussed it.
The county has pushed off finding a way to get extra road funding for too long, county council Member John Myers said.
“Are we going to be a council that kicks the can down the road, or are we going be a council that … helps the highway department fix these roads,” Myers said.
Myers later told the council that they should leave all options on the table.
“There’s a three-letter word — tax. Nobody likes it, but … it needs to be discussed,” Myers said.
Council member Jim Ison said there needs to be continued discussions on road funding.
“We need to start having these tough discussions on how we’re going to do it,” Ison said. “We’re not going to be able to do it all at once; we’ve got to prioritize and come up with a game plan.”
Out of all the pressing needs, the road to prepare for I-69 traffic is the most pressing, Mastin told the commissioners.
“This dollar amount is jarring, but the report is intended to identify the needs,” Mastin said. “How many of those we can ultimately fund and how we prioritize those will still be determined.”
CORRECTION – 9:51 a.m. March 23: A previous version of this story incorrectly said a score of 4 for concrete streets meant reconstruction was not recommended within the next 100 years. The number of years is 10, and this has been corrected in the story.
