Evansville Secondary Access Road Ribbon Cutting Held to Open New Route

Evansville Secondary Access Road Ribbon Cutting Held to Open New Route

stakeholders at evansville secondary access road ribbon cutting

stakeholders at evansville secondary access road ribbon cutting

On Tuesday, August 10th a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony was held to celebrate the opening of the Evansville Secondary Access Road. The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony included brief statements about the long and intensive work that went into seeing the project to fruition as well as a ribbon cutting to open the road to the public. As an integral part of the project, WLC’s President, Shane Porter, received the honor from Evansville of cutting the ribbon to open the road.

The Evansville Secondary Access Road improves the daily life for residents and access for service providers.  As the Town of Evansville lies on both the north and the south sides of the BNSF mainline. There are only three access points into the northern portion of Evansville, all of which are at grade crossings of the BNSF Railroad.  Approximately 80% of the Town’s population lives north of the rail line, which is also where all local emergency services are located. Given that the east and west entrances into Evansville are only 3,600 feet apart, all three of the access roads can be blocked simultaneously by a train that passes through Evansville. Beyond the major inconvenience to residents, emergency response times are negatively impacted by these train delays. In addition, possible derailment, chemical spills or other events could occur, trapping the 80% of residents located north of the mainline. The Evansville Secondary Access Road provides an alternative route to residents and emergency vehicles.

 

WLC was integral part of this project assisting with the original study to identify the solution as well as providing grants writing, easement coordination, road design, land surveying and construction contract administration.

Read more about this project here and here.