Madison County neighbors frustrated with twice-delayed stoplight project at dangerous intersection

MADISON COUNTY, Ind. — Neighbors near County Road 800 and State Road 13 in Madison County are fed up with waiting on INDOT to change the intersection.

To know why neighbors are frustrated you just have to watch and listen at the intersection for a few minutes during rush hours.

Located right off of I-69 in Madison County, North and South traffic on State Road 13 has no stop sign so drivers speed past. This leaves cars on County Road 800 waiting minutes at a time, and squealing into the road whenever they get a sliver of space.

”It’s like playing a game of ‘Frogger,'” said neighbor Carrie Ashley. “You’re just trying to find a place where you can hop out.”

The situation has resulted in more than a few crashes. Since September 2023, at least 16 crashes have been investigated at the intersection by the Madison County Sheriff’s Officer or the Ingalls Police Dept.

”There was just an accident here again last week,” said Ashley, who lives within earshot of the intersection.

In fact, a 2020 INDOT study resulted in the intersection getting one of the worst grades INDOT gives to an intersection, including a prediction the intersection would soon get worse with expanding residential and commercial areas around it.

“There are more additions down that way,” said Ashley, pointing West down County Road 800. “But there is another addition down there so it seems like the traffic going north and south on 13 has just grown exponentially in the last five years.”

Ashley said this is the talk of her growing neighborhood, especially for new folks who have just moved in and begun to deal with the intersection.

”They will get on the [community Facebook] page and be like, ‘What is going on with this intersection? Why don’t we have a light? Why don’t we have a roundabout?” Ashley said. “And it’s the same old song and dance answer to tell them we are trying, we are working on this to no avail. INDOT keeps pushing it back.”

This intersection and the concerns of the neighbors around it first came to our attention in 2021 when three teenagers got in a serious crash . At the time, INDOT said a stoplight would be installed in 2023 and the project could not be moved up because it was already in the 2023 budget.

We returned to the intersection of State Road 13 and County Road 800 in 2023, when the neighbors here found out the project was getting pushed back. INDOT blamed the delay on “unforeseen complications” without giving further details.

The project was then slated to start in the spring of 2024.

”We were all very excited,” Ashley said. “We thought during the summer it would get in before school started.”

But, when another serious crash happened just a few days ago the neighbors checked the INDOT website to see when the project would start – and found out it had been delayed again.

”I feel, personally, like nobody cares,” Ashley said. “I invite anybody at INDOT to come out here two weeks from tomorrow when school starts. Sit here and watch these school buses try to get across here. Sit here and watch these parents try and get their kids to school safely. That’s my concern.”

INDOT spokesperson Kyleigh Cramer said the project has been delayed because of two factors mostly out of their hands. The first: underground utilities around the intersection.

”So making sure we have that electric and that power to power those lights,” Cramer said.

Second: the necessary private land around the intersection needed for the project.

”That does involve someone having to give up some of their land a little bit, so we’re working on an agreement from them and making sure we see eye to eye on that,” Cramer said.

In the time being, Cramer said INDOT crews will move the speed limit signs on State Road 13 farther back from the intersection with County Road 800. Their hope is this will give cars a sign to slow down before they approach the intersection, giving cars leaving CR 800 more time to enter traffic safely.

Ashley said she and her neighbors will “hope and pray” the stoplight project starts when it’s supposed to this time. Her chief worry — that no one else gets hurt at this intersection between now and then.

“I don’t even know what I’ll do,” she said. “I don’t even know what I say, because we’ve been trying for so long to make this intersection safe.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 59.