Engineer urges McCordsville council not to simply restripe 600 West; recommends targeted fixes

Steve Fairbock of A&F Engineering told the McCordsville Town Council that simply restriping the 600 West/Mount Comfort corridor into four lanes would create safety challenges because of narrow shoulders, changes in cross slope and narrow culverts that would force lane reductions at several points. “If you were to stripe it as 4 lanes, it’s almost like when you’re driving down a road that’s been resurfaced — people that want to switch lanes will slide into that,” Fairbock said.

Fairbock summarized the firm’s field measurements and said the corridor typically has 44 feet of pavement (two 12-foot travel lanes plus 10-foot shoulders in many locations) but narrows at culverts and other structures. Because of those pinch points and cross-slope transitions, he recommended against a simple restripe and instead proposed a mix of measures: milling and regrading to provide a uniform 2% cross slope where possible, localized widening at culverts with full-depth asphalt, adding 4-foot shoulders where the white line would otherwise be adjacent to grass, installing or restoring exclusive left-turn lanes at key intersections, upgrading pedestrian crossing beacons, and reviewing signal timing to increase throughput.

He outlined shorter-term, lower-cost improvements that the town could pursue quickly: adding exclusive left-turn lanes on approaches with available shoulder width, adjusting signal timing to address the busiest 15-minute peaks, and relocating or replacing pedestrian beacons so crossings align with the walking path. On larger projects, he said roundabouts (for example near 96th Street) and better intersection geometry could yield significant delay reductions but require coordination with Hamilton County and INDOT.

On cost and schedule, Fairbock said a full corridor reconstruction would be expensive and disruptive; he advised planning for two construction seasons if a major widening were to proceed and suggested staging work so the road would not be closed entirely during construction. He estimated targeted intersection work and signal timing adjustments would be far less costly than a corridor-wide rebuild; he also recommended waiting to see the traffic impacts of nearby projects — including an overpass and regional interchange changes — before committing to large-scale widening.

Council members pressed Fairbock on speeds, lane widths and timing. He said that if the town restriped to four lanes without other changes it might need to drop the posted speed to 35 mph for safety but that, with curb-and-gutter and full reconstruction, a 40 mph limit could be maintained. He recommended staff run a capacity analysis and return with a costed plan for the council to consider.

Next steps: staff will request follow-up capacity analyses and cost estimates based on Fairbock’s recommendations and report back to the council.