A growth in additional traffic and residents to Fayette County has necessitated a steering committee to be formed for the Fayette County & Communities Thoroughfare Plan study being done by Burgess & Niple, an engineering consultant firm from Columbus.
They will be studying future commercial, industrial and residential growth potential in Fayette County, along with agricultural considerations. The study considers key corridors from many areas going into Jeffersonville due to the Honda L/G plant’s anticipated hiring of 2,200 workers.
Erin Grushon, Mark Sullivan, and Jacob Miller, from Burgess & Niple, hosted a planning meeting on May 13 to prioritize which areas are most in need now, future needs, and roads needing improvements. This is not a capital improvement plan.
Some of those in attendance were Washington C.H. City Manager Joe Denen, all three Fayette County Commissioners, Jason Little, chief deputy engineer at the Fayette County Engineer’s Office, Mike Kirchner, mayor of Jeffersonville, Stephanie Gilbert, transportation planning coordinator of the Ohio Valley Regional Development Corporation, as well as a few other Jeffersonville participants.
The study uses ODOT output data for increases in traffic, input from city leadership, county commissioners, the Fayette County Engineer’s Office and others to gather data for their report. Specific people interviewed to help identify areas of growth were David Kiger, law director for the Village of Jeffersonville, Chelsie Baker, director of economic development for the City of Washington Court House, Anthony Sanor, community and economic development educator for OSU Extension, Jamie Gentry, partner at Enterprise Advisory Group, Jeff Reed, Andre Tan, and David Yanchik, from Honda/LG Battery Company, and Kristy Bowers, president of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce.
They discussed transportation issues and corridors/roads of concern.
The specific roadways being studied for heavy traffic are High/Main streets, State Route 734, State St/SR 41, SR 729, all in Jeffersonville; SR 435 in Octa, Court Street/Washington Avenue, Palmer Road/Old US 35, SR 41/North Street, all in Washington Court House; and Bloomingburg New Holland Road in Bloomingburg. The study includes all car, truck, bus, and semi-truck traffic at normal and peak times.
Different items in discussion were a roundabout for the Palmer/Route 35 area, a roundabout for the Bluegrass Parkway in Jeffersonville, sidewalks near Fayette Christian School and the Village Apartments on Dayton Avenue, and I-71/Rt35 being a busy truck area. A new $10 million truckstop will be built soon between the Flying J and Love’s truck stops to handle the additional truck traffic to the Honda plant.
Since it is not possible to widen Main Street in Jeffersonville due to a short housing setback from the roadway, an access road around the center of town was discussed. Additional housing areas will be investigated on available land in Jeffersonville for housing developments.
The increase in traffic will cause vehicle delays, additional travel times, and some roadways will need significant changes in traffic patterns, according to those involved in this study. The study will look into considerable growth from 2025 to 2045 in the county. To alleviate the majority of the traffic concerns, some roadways will need some reconstruction or additional accesses.
The study group at the meeting May 13 discussed how they would prioritize roadway elements such as heavy traffic, roadway safety, bicycle traffic, crash safety elements, and which are important in each area of the study.
After the gathered information is studied by the consulting firm, another committee meeting will be scheduled.
