Brought to you by WBIW News and Network Indiana
Last updated on Thursday, June 7, 2018
(MONTGOMERY) - The closing of US 50, just east of McCracken’s Curve in Montgomery, has turned into a mess for motorists and Daviess County officials.
The Indiana Department of Transportation shut down traffic just west of Montgomery this week for a 10-working-day project to replace a pipe under the highway.
Daviess County Sheriff Jerry Harbstreit says problems surfaced as soon as the barricades went up. County highway officials wanted to keep heavy trucks off of County Road 800 East, County Road 650 East and County Road 600 East, so they put up barricades that would limit the size of vehicles that could run on them. The county also had an issue with trucks getting to the barricades on US 50 and then not having anywhere to go.
The Washington Times Herald reports, motorist are disregarding the marked detours in Washington and Loogootee. The official detour is I-69 to State Road 58 to US 231 to US 50. Instead, the vehicles and trucks are using the back roads around Montgomery. The county even anticipated a lot of the local traffic going around by using County Road 900 East to Old Highway 50 and then back to US 50.
On average 10,000 vehicles a day use U.S. 50 through Montgomery. About 600 a day normally use US 50. Now, all of that traffic is trying to make its way along Old US 50 damaging it.
Daviess County Highway Supervisor Phil Cornelius says the highway is falling apart. He says the county roads were not built to handle the traffic load.
As part of an attempt to make things safer, county officials have also put a temporary 35 miles per hour speed limit in place along County Road 900 East and Old US 50.
Information from the Washington Times Herald, http://www.washtimesherald.com
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