Eclipse planners working to avoid nightmare traffic scenario in Evansville

EVANSVILLE — Quietly, planners are working to avoid a monstrous traffic snarl after the April 8 total solar eclipse ends and tens of thousands of people exit the Evansville area all at once.

The plans include deploying a small army of law enforcement officers representing local and state agencies, positioning wreckers on both sides of the U.S. 41 Twin Bridge, manipulating traffic lights with signal-timing, pausing — and accelerating — road construction, and strategic messaging to out-of-town visitors.

It remains to be seen how many of the visitors will listen to the messaging, but planners are trying.

"We’re encouraging people to take their time, spend an extra day (in the area), leave on Tuesday (April 9) instead of leaving Monday because, as soon as the solar eclipse is over, everyone decides to leave — and that’s going to be where our main issue’s going to be," said Lt. Erik Nilssen, one of three Vanderburgh County sheriff's officers who help lead planning meetings.

Nilssen had another plea to motorists — one that harkens back to the 2017 eclipse, when Evansville was only on the fringes of the "path of totality" traced across the Earth by the moon's shadow as it crossed the sun.

"We don’t want motorists who are traveling from A to B to pull over on the side of the road and just stop and look at the eclipse," he said. "They need to get off the roadway completely so they don’t stop traffic."

Eclipse roundup: Here's a roundup of Courier & Press solar eclipse stories ahead of April 8

Evansville is directly in the narrow Texas-to-Maine path of the April 8 eclipse. The sun gradually will be eclipsed by the moon, bringing total darkness for slightly more than three minutes at 2:02 p.m. in Evansville and six seconds later in Henderson, Kentucky. Henderson is expected to have about two minutes and 30 seconds of totality.

Planners expect the celestial event could bring as many as 80,000 people to the area — and while that would likely pump millions into the local economy, it also illustrates a challenge faced by other cities, towns and remote areas at the center of the eclipse's path.

People who want the best view are coming in numbers that can look overwhelming. All those vehicles driven by out-of-towners could choke local roadways into gridlock.

Nilssen pointed to traffic issues that beset the 2017 eclipse in western states. In Wyoming, more than 536,000 cars jammed the state's streets post-eclipse. And "travel from Casper, Wyoming, to Denver, Colorado — normally a 4-hour trip — took 10 hours or more," according to an analysis of traffic from Transportation Research News.

Nilssen sees such scenes in his nightmares.

"Hopefully we don’t have the bumper-to-bumper, 15-hour traffic, but our deputies are going to be prepared," he said. "We’re encouraging them to bring snacks, bring water, because it may be difficult to take breaks if we are in that sort of predicament."

'Worry about the crash report after we get the roadway back open'

Indiana State Police, the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office and Evansville Police Department are not allowing officers time off on eclipse day, Nilssen said, and agencies in surrounding areas likely aren't either. The agencies' road areas of focus for the most part are as might be expected — ISP will key on interstates, VCSO on county-maintained stretches of main thoroughfares and EPD on city streets.

Nilssen estimated those agencies alone may deploy more than 200 officers between them. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources will throw a few officers into the mix as well, he said.

More: The April total solar eclipse could snarl traffic for hours across thousands of miles

"If the traffic is flowing as it should be, with the normal infrastructure, our traffic signals, we won’t necessarily have to get out and direct traffic — but if it’s a situation where maybe there’s a crash or traffic is backed up, there may be officers or deputies out in the middle of an intersection with their lights on, allowing vehicles to proceed through red traffic signals to get the traffic flowing," Nilssen said.

"But that’s only on an as-needed basis."

If traffic is bumper-to-bumper despite all the precautions, Nilssen said, then yes, officers would be out directing traffic.

Henderson County, Kentucky, authorities will help, among other ways, by staging wreckers on their side of the U.S. 41 Twin Bridge. Wreckers will await on the Indiana side too.

Filling out crash reports won't be the priority if those wreckers are needed, Nilssen said.

"If there’s a crash on one of our biggest bottlenecks into Vanderburgh County, we can quickly get the vehicles off the roadway, worry about the crash report after we get the roadway back open," he said. "That way we don’t create that bottleneck."

A complicating factor

A recent announcement from the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) heralded a pause in construction on one of Evansville's main thoroughfares as a way to accommodate eclipse-related traffic. It also spoke to the pressing need of planners to account for construction projects and to take proactive measures.

Construction on the Lloyd Expressway will halt at midnight the morning of April 7 — the day before the eclipse — and will resume at sunrise the day after the event, according to a news release from INDOT.

"Barrels will be moved back and lanes will be open along the Lloyd to accommodate the extra traffic," the release states.

The pause in work on the Lloyd comes weeks ahead of when the state is set to begin a massive construction project along the roadway and many of its intersections.

In Downtown Evansville, the Walnut Street construction project will be an issue. City Engineer Mike Labitzke said phase II of the project, from Weinbach Avenue to Vann Avenue, should be completed by eclipse day.

City officials are insisting on it, Labitzke said.

"I’ve been preaching that for months to that contractor, and they are going to get it done and open by April 7," he said.

Three intersections on Sycamore Street will be closed for an ongoing city water and sewer utility storm sewer project, Labitzke said.

"The other ones that are under construction, we’ve talked about just buttoning up and getting as small of a footprint as they can for that day because we know the influx of people will really just kind of overwhelm everything," the city engineer said. "Walnut will be great to get open because that’s connected right to the state hospital, so people (watching the eclipse) at the state hospital will be able to get out and get home."

Viewing parties create their own issues

Riverside Drive will be closed for a Downtown Evansville viewing party for the once-in-a-lifetime celestial event. It might be great fun for partygoers, but it won't make things any easier for city police.

"The Evansville Police Department is going to be flowing traffic around the Riverside Drive closure," Nilssen said. "We’re pretty much going to be spread throughout the county to make sure that we can keep traffic flowing, but also maintain safety for everyone."

More: Here's a list of events leading up to, and on the day of, the April 8 total eclipse

Wesselman Woods will host an eclipse party from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. on the former Par-3 golf course with no obstructed views and plenty of space. Evansville police will be there, too. The crowd count will be everything, said Labitzke.

"It depends how many people show up," he said. "We haven’t directed traffic out of that area since Roberts Stadium was demolished. So, some old lessons need to be relearned here."

One-way streets shouldn't be a big issue, Labitzke said. There's just Garvin and Governor streets, and directional apps should help out-of-town visitors avoid going the wrong way.

Planners have a tool of their own — signal-timing manipulation — to get traffic out of Downtown Evansville faster, the city engineer said. In anticipation of a mass exodus, the city will extend the time lights are green at intersections as it does for other major crowd events.

Other things motorists should watch for

Out in Vanderburgh County, two lanes of Green River Road are closed between Lynch and Heckel roads for the Green River Trail Project.

INDOT closed Indiana 57 near Daylight in March. The section between Green River and Boonville-New Harmony Road is closed to allow crews to rehabilitate the bridge over Schlensker Ditch. The project is expected to last through May, weather permitting.

INDOT's official detour for the project is Indiana 57 to U.S. 41 to Interstate 64 to Interstate 69. Local traffic will have access to the point of closure.

Some of the news about road projects is popping up late in the game.

On March 25, INDOT announced intermittent lane closures for U.S. 41 in Evansville to allow crews to do electric transmission line work near the roadway. The crews are working for CenterPoint, a spokesman for the state agency said.

Beginning on or about April 1, INDOT said, crews would begin the lane closures near the Evansville Regional Airport on north and southbound lanes of traffic. INDOT said lane closures would only occur when crews are on-site.

The work "is expected to take a week to complete, depending on the weather," said an INDOT statement.

If the work begins April 1, that's cutting it close. But an INDOT spokesman assured the Courier & Press that the work should be wrapped up by April 5. Given that the lane closures are intermittent and will occur only while workers are out working, INDOT doesn't anticipate any traffic impact on eclipse day even if the project isn't completed by then.

People can view current construction and maintenance activities on INDOT’s TrafficWise map (511in.org).

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Eclipse planners working to avoid traffic nightmare in Evansville