Message boards will be placed every half-mile on the Borman. This one notifies drivers of lane speed limits. An inside shoulder lane is also open for travel.

I-80/94 FlexRoad Project promises less stop and more go on Borman

Contributed By: The 411 News

Indiana’s busiest highway is the Borman Expressway. Its 14 miles along the I-80/I-94 corridor, from the I-65 interchange in Lake County, Indiana to the IL 394 interchange in Cook County, Illinois carries up to 160,000 vehicles a day.

That number reaches 200,000 daily near the Illinois border, said Mindy Peterson, public involvement director for Parsons Corp., the lead project development and design firm for the Indiana Dept. of Transportation’s 80/94 FlexRoad Project.

Peterson and team members of the FlexRoad Outreach Program were at the Hammond Sportsplex Wednesday evening to update the public on the project that is expected to improve traffic flow and safety along the Borman.

The INDOT solution is not more lanes for the Borman, but better management of traffic during weekday morning and evening commuting hours.

It’s also a solution for the congestion and delays when accidents occur. The project has a solution for the summer months, when weekend leisure travel increases between Chicago and points east.

When FlexRoad improvements are completed in 2029, users will be able to know road conditions at every mile of the Borman, whether inside the corridor or on the way to it.

Message boards or gantries, placed every half-mile, will tell drivers about bottlenecks, where traffic has slowed or stopped.

The gantries will alert drivers to any type of increase in traffic volumes, incidents, or weather conditions that may delay their travel . Drivers will know about it miles before they get there, allowing them to choose an alternate route, if necessary. Messages will let drivers know which lanes are open and which are closed, and lane speed limits.

Parsons project leader Toby Randolph said the gantries will help reduce secondary accidents.

“Let’s say a major accident occurs and the traffic by the accident had been going the speed limit, 60-70 miles per hour. Speeds in the lanes approaching the accident will be reduced. People will know ahead of time they’ve got to pay attention,” Randolph said.

“We’ll start stepping down speeds, maybe in one lane to 45mph and the next lane to 35mph. The message boards will tell them a lane has closed and drivers will start moving over. This will prevent hard braking and rear-end secondary collisions as drivers get to the accident scene,” Randolph said. “They will be going the right speed when they get there. All those little things put together help out a lot.”

During peak commuting hours or in response to incidents, inside shoulder lanes will open for travel. Today, driving on the shoulder will get you a ticket.

“Won’t all that sign reading slow traffic and cause congestion, especially for older drivers with bad vision?” asked Lake County Coroner Dave Pastrick. “We have a limit for how many lines of text. We have to strike a balance for it to be informative but not have people spending a lot of time reading it,” Randolph replied.

Ramp metering will control the frequency of vehicles entering the Borman to match road capacity, leading to improved merging and reduced crash rates.

Fiber optic improvements will be corridor-wide to support the digital signage. Fiber optic construction is set to begin in 2025 and completed by 2026. FlexRoad construction begins soon after in 2026 to improve shoulder lanes, install the gantries, and some pavement replacement..

Starting at Grant Street in Gary, 3 lanes will carry traffic to I-65.

The eastbound entrance ramp to the Borman at Broadway will be removed. INDOT is looking at 2 options to replace it. One is a traffic signal, the other is a roundabout for traffic to enter and exit the Borman.


“Won’t all that sign reading slow traffic and cause congestion?" Lake County Coroner Dave Pastrick (right) asked Parsons team members Toby Randolph and Joe Brahm.

Story Posted:08/16/2024