No new roads or bridges will be added in this area, but Indiana Department of Transportation leaders have OK’ed over $12 million – $7.1 million in Franklin County and $5.6 million in Ripley County – to maintain and upgrade structures over the next four years, according to a draft posted online at www.in.gov/indot/2926.htm.

“We’ve gone through our program and tried to address our needs as best we can and hopefully these projects will do that,” Jim Ude, Seymour District planning and production director, noted Nov. 25.

No one from the two counties came to a Nov. 19 open house in Seymour to discuss the projects.

In Franklin County, the most costly one at $1.4 million will be to install new guard rails along I-74 at various locations in Franklin, Ripley and Dearborn counties in 2011.

Two bridges will be improved. INDOT will spend $920,000 over 2010-11 to upgrade Bridge No. 48, the Alley Ford Bridge over Pipe Creek on Pipe Creek Road 0.3 miles north of Snail Creek Road near Haytown. “At least six years ago a lady and her kids almost drowned” there, reported Franklin County Highway Department clerk Hollie Maxie. “It’s been deteriorating for quite a while” and is heavily rusted. “They’re trying to save it because it’s a steel truss bridge and there aren’t very many of those left anymore.”

About $66,000 in local funds will be used next year to strengthen Bridge No. 94 over the east fork of Blue Creek on Blue Creek Road 0.2 miles northwest of Sturwold Road, according to Maxie. INDOT is in the process of acquiring right of ways, Ude said.

Seven of the 18 Franklin County projects will better U.S. 52.

There are three Ripley County projects close to Batesville. A small structure on State Road 229 going over the Hillcrest golf course creek will be replaced in 2012, costing $534,800.

The existing deck on a S.R. 229 bridge four miles north of State Road 48 “has deteriorated from use and salt and has been patched a lot,” he reported. A new wearing surface estimated at $461,475 will be poured on the deck in 2013.

A $28,100 environmental mitigation project will take place next year at the northwest quadrant of Delaware Road and County Road 1300 North. “We had to acquire an environmentally sensitive area” to which wildlife hopefully will migrate after INDOT encroached on a similar spot.

The largest Ripley County job is a $1.3 million slide correction on U.S. 50 west of Holton. Ude explained, “In the past, we’ve fixed major slides like along the Ohio River by drilling into substantial bedrock” to affix concrete cylinders to banks with tiebacks, then pouring concrete in between to form a retaining wall so soil won’t slide. “It’s labor intensive and there are a lot of materials,” making it expensive.

About $1 million will be spent to re-pave U.S. 421 from U.S. 50 in Versailles south to the Ripley-Jefferson county line.

Area residents may submit written comments at the above Web site.

Funding sources include traditional state and federal tax revenues and Gov. Mitch Daniels’ Major Moves highway program.