INDOT interest reaches only so far

If the folks at the Indiana Department of Transportation thought they were getting their money’s worth when pavement was patched on U.S. 27 north of Portland last year, they were sadly mistaken.
Not that it’s something that would bother the people in charge.
Jay County is so accustomed to neglect at the hands of INDOT that it’s something of a standing joke with municipal and county officials. The county is technically part of the Greenfield district, but that connection seems to diminish with every mile.
And when INDOT operations were expanded east of Albany and reduced at the facility not far from Jay County High School, the disconnect grew worse.
When it comes to things like snow plowing, that’s probably to be expected. The farther you are from headquarters, the tougher it is to provide service.
But the fact is, the neglect extends beyond snow removal. State highway conditions in Jay County have been so bad for so long that it’s almost taken for granted.
Today, any local driver knows when heading north from Portland to Bryant that the approach to the bridge over Limberlost Creek near Bloomfield Elementary School is going to be of a Third World quality.
Sure, there’s a project scheduled in Portland for this year to fix Indiana 26 East (Water Street). But INDOT’s hand was almost forced, as that area is considered one of the worst stretches of highway in the district.
And there’s another in the works to upgrade Indiana 26 west of the city, but that project has been delayed and delayed and delayed. Drive that section of highway and you feel you need to tuck in your elbows to avoid hitting an oncoming semi. It simply does not meet 20th century standards, let alone 21st.
Drive north from Dunkirk on Indiana 167 and the elbows tuck in as well. There is next to no shoulder. The list could go on.
But it’s especially infuriating to see INDOT spend some money in Jay County, as it did last summer, and waste it. The ineffectual patches didn’t do a thing to make the road better to navigate, and now the patches themselves are deteriorating as if they were made from pudding rather than asphalt.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an INDOT that cared about the entire state of Indiana, the one that stretches all the way to its borders? Sure it would. But don’t hold your breath. It hasn’t happened in the past 40 years, and our guess is that it won’t begin to happen any time soon. —J.R.