Indy's $200 million construction season heats up
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Indy DPW Director Todd Wilson talks about the 2025 construction season as Mayor Joe Hogsett and City-County Councilor Kristin Jones look on. Photo: Courtesy of Indy DPW
Indy's 2025 road construction is underway with the promise of improving hundreds of miles of roadway and pedestrian-focused pathways throughout the city.
Why it matters: The work comes as Indianapolis continues to grapple with a pedestrian safety crisis and growing vehicle crash totals.
The big picture: The projects detailed late last week by city officials at Hendricks Park are the next step of Mayor Joe Hogsett's five-year $1 billion capital improvement plan aimed at delivering $859 million in transportation improvements and $180 million in stormwater improvements.
Zoom in: Work on the docket this year includes investing $200 million in transportation and $25 million in stormwater.
- It also includes phase one of the three-phase Madison Avenue Road Diet to improve safety on the south side corridor.
- Once complete in 2028, the $47 million project will remove two travel lanes, repave more than 16 miles, introduce the 7,200-foot Interurban Trail and add 15,000 linear feet of new curbs and sidewalks between Pleasant Run Parkway and Ray Street.
- The work is being funded with three rounds of federal grant dollars through the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization (IMPO).
- "This project is about more than just resurfacing a road — it's about reimagining how people move through and experience their neighborhoods," said City-County Councilor Kristin Jones who represents the district and serves as chair of the council's Public Works Committee.
State of play: Other big projects scheduled to take shape this season include the $22.7 million Union Station bridge rehabilitation, $14.6 million in streetscape work along 10th and Rural streets, the $20 million conversion of Michigan and New York streets and $18.7 million in improvements along Girls School Road.
By the numbers: Crews are working on:
- ♿ 1,300 new or rehabilitated ADA ramps.
- 🚲 15 miles of new bike lanes.
- 🌉 17 bridges.
- 🌳 Planting 1,077 new trees.
- 🚶 Introducing 163,976 linear feet of trails.
- 💦 More than 37,000 linear feet of new or rehabbed storm sewers.
What they're saying: "The 2025 construction season is going to be transformational for our city," Hogsett said. "None of these infrastructure improvements would be possible without our dedicated, hardworking team at Indy DPW who will turn more than a quarter of a billion-dollar investment into real, material improvements to our streets."
Zoom out: Indy's construction plans were rolled out just weeks after the Indiana Department of Transportation officially marked the start of its 2025 construction season while recognizing National Work Zone Awareness Week.
- According to INDOT commissioner Lyndsay Quist, more than 1,200 projects are planned statewide with nearly 200 of them focused on improved traffic flow and safety.
- The host project for INDOT's construction season kickoff was the two-year I-65 Safety and Efficiency project on Indy's southeast side that stretches from north of the I-465 interchange to just south of the I-65/I-70 overpass near Fletcher Avenue.
What we're watching: The forecast. This massive year of road work is all weather dependent, and conditions in Indiana these days are growing both more extreme and more unpredictable.
The bottom line: Be prepared to drive around a lot of orange barrels this summer.