Greenwood plans twin Smith Valley Road roundabouts in 2024

Next summer, construction will begin on a roundabout at the entrance of Greenwood Community High School.

City officials are planning to construct a two-lane, approximately $1.4 million roundabout at the intersection of Smith Valley Road and Woodmen Boulevard in the summer of 2024. This roundabout would be located just east of a planned $2.3 million roundabout at Smith Valley Road and Averitt Road, which would begin construction around the same time.

City officials think the roundabouts will improve traffic capacity and safety along this section of Smith Valley Roads, said Mark St. John, city engineer.

“The roundabout at Woodman is being designed in tandem. It was conceptualized in tandem,” he said. “It was always thought of as two roundabouts replacing the two traffic signals there.”

The city originally applied for federal funding for both roundabouts, however, they only received federal funding for the one at Averitt Road. Since then, officials have continued to design them together with the intent of them being constructed or opening around the same time, St. John said.

“The way traffic operates, the roundabouts would not operate as efficiently if there was still a traffic signal upstream or downstream of one,” he said.

For the roundabout at Woodmen Boulevard, the city plans to use local funding to pay for the project, St. John said. Officials are exploring additional funding options, such as the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program, to help with funding the project.

However, the city is ready to fund it locally if officials are not able to get outside funding, he said.

As it stands now, the Woodmen Boulevard roundabout is planned to be built and finished in the summer of 2024. Because Woodmen Boulevard is the only entrance to the high school, the city wants this one done first, St. John said.

The roundabout at Averitt Road will follow shortly after, with construction taking place that fall, he said.

The city is currently undergoing right-of-way acquisition process to get land from properties surrounding the roundabout, though there is not a lot of right-of-way that needs to be acquired for the project. Most of the land is coming from Greenwood Community Schools, and officials are working with them on land acquisition, St. John said.

“There’s no north leg, so the roundabout, we’re able to shift it south … toward the school property,” he said. “There are only two properties on the north side of the road that we’re acquiring right-of-way from and we’re in that process now.”

The Smith Valley and Averitt roundabout was publicly announced last year, but word about the high school roundabout only began to circulate among the public recently.

St. John believes that all affected properties have now been contacted about the project, which has been talked about and discussed at meetings in the past. It’s always been discussed in tandem with the Averitt Road roundabout, but when the funding fell through for the high school roundabout, officials were unsure of the timeline or how to fund it, he said.

“I think until maybe the last six months or so, we weren’t sure exactly what the construction timeline on that would look like,” he said.

City officials didn’t reach out to nearby landowners sooner because they needed to get a better vision of the design and find out what right-of-way was absolutely necessary to acquire first, St. John said.

“We don’t want to acquire too much. We don’t want to acquire too little and have to come back and say, ‘Hey, we need more,’” St. John said. “We needed our design to be far enough along before we really reached out and had those conversations with property owners.”

Terry Terhune, superintendent of Greenwood schools, said the district is not funding the project. He believes the roundabouts will improve traffic flow and benefit the city.

“If anybody’s ever driven up and down Smith Valley at around 5 or 5:30 in the afternoon during rush hour, there’s a lot of traffic there,” he said. “Hopefully, it’ll ease the traffic flow through.”

The school district knew the city planned to put a roundabout at Woodmen Boulevard eventually. After spring break, the district was informed about some changes to the timelines of the roundabouts, and were shown the design of the one at the high school entrance, Terhune said.

The roundabout will be very similar to one built at Carmel High School, and will be designed to accommodate school buses, Terhune said. After seeing the design school officials asked the city to add an additional crosswalk across Smith Valley Road for access to Southwest Elementary, he said.

The city and the district are also working on a plan to make sure they are able to access the high school and surrounding school buildings during the construction.

“We have a lot of extracurricular activities and things that occur here during the summer, but as long as we can get in and out of the high school facility — and our administration office is also open all summer — as long as we can access those buildings, we’ll be fine,” Terhune said.

Construction of the roundabout at Averitt Road could affect Greenwood Middle School and the district’s transportation routes, but district officials are working with the city to plan around that, Terhune said.

“Hopefully construction will go smoothly and get done quickly,” he said.