If you’ve driven Bendix Drive near the South Bend International Airport in recent years, you’ve probably noticed it can be a bumpy ride. The city Thursday announced plans for improvements.
City Public Works Director Eric Horvath says the city next year will start and finish a project to narrow that stretch of Bendix from Voorde Drive to Lathrop Street, and add a pedestrian path.
Horvath says residents have complained about the bumpy road surface. The $10 million project will be funded with $5.4 million in federal money and $4.6 million in city funds.
“We’ve had comments," Horvath says. "People don’t understand sometimes how long this federal process takes but it just takes a little more time than if you do it with local dollars.”
Horvath says the road’s traffic volume doesn’t require four lanes. Instead it will have two lanes with a center turn lane.
He’s pushed for the pedestrian path from personal experience. Nearly 40 years ago when he was 18, Horvath says a car hit him as he was riding his bike along that stretch of Bendix.
“Scraped up pretty good, little road rash but luckily he just clipped the side of my shoulder just enough to knock me off balance and on the ground but didn’t run me over or anything," Horvath recalled. "He kept on going, never stopped.”
