Lafayette Road Bridge OPEN (! ! !)

Dear Traders Point Neighbors:

You may have already seen that the barriers are gone from 71st and Lafayette Road indicating that the project to reconstruct the bridge over Eagle Creek is finished and Lafayette Road is open to traffic once again. (See below for the city's release describing the project.) Blessings to Noel Road for all the traffic it carried during this bridge closing---may it have a more peaceful and restful existence from now on!

Also below, you can read the city's statement about increased crack sealing being accomplished on roadways to combat pot holes developing.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Sincerely,
MAStevens
TPAN Secretary
___
htp

LAFAYETTE ROAD BRIDGE OVER EAGLE CREEK REOPENS
All lanes of traffic are open and unrestricted; ToxDrop location to open
soon

INDIANAPOLIS - Northwest side residents and commuters can enjoy a
smoother route to work and home thanks to the replacement of the
Lafayette Road Bridge over Eagle Creek. After being closed for the
construction and total replacement of the concrete bridge, Lafayette
Road from 71st to 79th streets is now open to accommodate the estimated
8,000 vehicles that travel the thoroughfare daily.

"The structural support of this bridge was deteriorating and
necessitated a complete replacement," said Department of Public Works
Director David Sherman. "The average life span of a bridge is about 50
years and the Lafayette Road Bridge was built in the 1920s and widened
to four lanes in 1935."

Work began on the three-span, prestressed concrete beam bridge in March
2009 and included the construction of a new bridge deck, beams and
rails. Texas classic rails were constructed, which helped improve the
appearance of the bridge railing. The project also included the
resurfacing of the bridge and includes a bike lane that connects to
Eagle Creek Park.

"The city's infrastructure is aging and in need of repair," Sherman
said. "We recognize the importance of bridges as a part of our overall
infrastructure maintenance, but we're facing an estimated need of $291
million to replace or rehabilitate our aging bridges. As a result, we're
working to prioritize our bridge work."

In addition to the Lafayette Road Bridge, the city plans to replace or
reconstruct 10 bridge structures, totaling more than $18 million in
construction costs from 2009 through 2013.

Eighty percent of the $2.3 million Lafayette Road Bridge over Eagle
Creek costs was federally funded. The other 20 percent was matched with
local dollars.

The ToxDrop location at the Traders Point Collection Facility has been
temporarily closed for construction on this project and is scheduled to
reopen in early December.

For more information on the ToxDrop Program, please visit
www.sustainindy.org/toxdrop.cfm.

For more information on the Indy BikeWays Plan, please visit
www.sustainindy.org/bikeways.cfm.

Mayor Ballard launched SustainIndy and created the Office of
Sustainability in October of 2008. Both represent an innovative
enterprise aimed at delivering long-term cost savings to the city,
building the local economy, improving our quality of life and enhancing
our environmental and public health. Its efforts are designed to
aggressively move Indianapolis forward in making it one of the most
sustainable cities in the Midwest. For more information, visit
www.sustainindy.org.

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CITY CONTINUES TO MAKE MILESTONE IMPROVEMENTS IN STREET MAINTENANCE
Unprecedented strategy expected to yield better results than ever

INDIANAPOLIS - In an unprecedented strategy in Mayor Ballard's mission
to improve city streets, the Department of Public Works (DPW) have begun
efforts to crack-seal more than 1,400 lane miles of city streets by the
spring of 2010 in one of the most significant preventive maintenance
efforts the city has ever seen.

"It's good sense and fiscally responsible to invest in projects that
have proven results," said Mayor Greg Ballard. "Due to a combined effort
of crack-sealing, better pothole repair methods and more efficient
management of resources, we've averaged about 5,000 less pothole
complaints from July to November 2009 vs. the same period in 2008."

In previous years, the accomplishment of very little crack-sealing by
the city had a major impact on the number of potholes residents and
commuters had to navigate when driving city streets during the winter
and spring of 2008. In addition to implementing Six Sigma strategies to
improve the pothole repair process, city officials committed to a more
proactive approach budgeting $1.4 million for crack-sealing work and
purchasing 4 new crack-sealing machines By the end of 2008, city
operations crews completed over 250 lane miles of crack-sealing
contributing to significantly less pothole complaints and a greatly
decreased number of potholes across the city.

Directed by Mayor Ballard to find ways to do more to protect citizens
and their vehicles from existing street damage, department officials
combined the resources of the engineering and street maintenance
divisions of DPW. This strategy for improving existing street
infrastructure allowed the city to contract out almost 1,200 lane miles
of crack sealing work to supplement approximately 250 lane miles of
crack-sealing work planned by the street maintenance division.

Funds for the effort are a result of under-run savings of about $2
million from other engineering projects.

"As we are doing in all areas of city infrastructure, we will continue
to work to creatively identify ways to better protect residents as they
travel city streets," said DPW Director David Sherman. "With the
preventive maintenance of crack-sealing work, roads will be better and
there will be less damage to vehicles."

Potholes are formed when water and moisture freeze after seeping under
streets through cracks in the pavement. The frozen water causes the
pavement to expand resulting in a concave area underneath the road
surface once the frozen water melts. A pothole results once the weights
of traveling vehicles break the hollow area under the pavement surface.
Sealing the cracks in the road surface before water and moisture can
enter them is a proven method of preventing the formation of potholes.

The current cycle time average for pothole repairs has remained constant
from July through November at 2.2 days. The number of pothole complaints
received this time in 2008 was 17,412. Current requests this year are
5,112 less at 12,300.

For more information about the Chuckhole Kaizen process click on the
following link to learn more about the city's efforts in partnership
with Eli Lilly to improve pothole repair methods in Marion County.
http://indianapolis.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=223

To report a pothole online visit:
http://www.indy.gov/eGov/Mayor/Pages/Pothole.aspx.
You may also call the Mayor's Action Center (MAC) at 327-4622 to report
a pothole.

Eagle Creek Park Foundation Fall Newsletter

The fall newsletter is now available on the website at Eagle Creek Park Foundation.

As you know the membership drive letters and forms have been delayed due to changes in the way that Indy Parks will be handling season passes. The Foundation will no longer be selling its own pass to the park. Instead we will be sending out a voucher for each pass purchased through the Foundation that can then be exchanged for an Indy Parks card for access to the park. These Foundation vouchers can only be purchased through the Foundation and not at the gatehouses, so it will be important for you to return the membership form that you download from the website in order to support the Foundation and its goals. We hope to send out the membership drive emails shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thank you very much for your patience and have a safe and happy holiday and a great season at the park!
Your Eagle Creek Park Foundation Board and Staff

Original site of Traders Point Indian settlement to be protected by conservation easement

Preface: Several years I was told in confidence that the name Traders Point actually referred to an Indian settlement located west of Traders Point where Crown Point Road terminates and becomes private property. I was asked not to publish the information because the property was privately owned and the owners might not appreciate the publicity. Now the property owners, Bob and Lou Rice of 8751 Crown Point Road, have formally created a conservation easement to protect their property and their story is published in the current issue of Conserving Indiana, the publication of the Central Indiana Land Trust. This is a significant event and you will enjoy reading about the Rices and their property. The map shows the property's proximity to Traders Point, Indiana.
http://www.conservingindiana.org/docs/Fall_Winter_2009.pdf

Bob and Lou Rice are not your
typical Marion County residents.
First of all, they own 56
acres of woods and prairie in this
highly-populated county. Secondly,
they are true nature lovers
who, rather than keeping an
option for development of their
land on the table, decided to
permanently protect it through a
conservation easement with the
Central Indiana Land Trust. This
is only the Land Trust’s second
permanently protected property
in Marion County and the first
since the Gene B. Glick Nature
Preserve was donated in 1992.
Cliff, Heather, and I visited the
Rice Property, located near Eagle
Creek Park on the Northwest
side of Indianapolis, in September.
The Rice’s love of the land
and all things living was evident
from the moment we drove onto
their land and knocked on their
door. The driveway, which is the
“gate on the left” in a
small cluster of driveways,
gives the land
its name “Left Gate
Farm Nature Sanctuary.”
Its winding path
leads you back to the
Rice Home. Bob and
Lou greeted us with
hugs, while their five
dogs greeted us with
plentiful kisses.
Bob and Lou designated
their land,
which is bisected by
a tributary to Eagle
Creek, as a nature
sanctuary long before
the Central Indiana
Land Trust became involved.
The Land Trust is merely a
means to an end – ensuring that
their family land protected forever.
Bob walks his land, which
has a well-maintained loop trail,
everyday. Upon his return, Lou
always asks him if he saw anything
new. “He says yes every
single time,” she said. On the
day of our walk in September,
it was green dragon (Arisaema
dracontium) in fruit at a new
location.
Left Gate Farm
is a special place,
not only because
it exists in Marion
County when such
a small amount
of privately-held
natural land is
left, but because
it is teeming with
native Indiana
plant species, from
wildflowers to ferns to trees.
Bob handed me two booklets
during our visit. One was “The
Wildflowers of Left Gate Farm,”
in which he has recorded 283
species since 1937! Some have
disappeared due to natural
causes, and some due to greedy
human intruders, but most are
still there. Dutchman’s breeches,
hepatica, rue anemone, trillium,
violets, shooting stars, bluebells
and many others carpet the
forest floor in April, while the
fall offers Short’s aster, bluestemmed
goldenrod and nodding
ladies tresses.
This wildflower lover will be
back in the spring, if not sooner,
I promised Bob and Lou.
The Rice’s conservation easement
does not automatically create an
open invitation for Land Trust
staff or members to visit their
land. This is one of the benefits
of a conservation easement. The
landowner can continue to live
on the land which is still private
property; they must simply agree
to never develop it, and allow us
to monitor it on an annual basis.
However, the Rices are nature
Fifty-six Acres Protected in Marion County!
Bob Rice led the Land Trust staff on a tour of the
Rice property, now protected in perpetuity.
Short’s aster is one of the wildflowers seen in the fall
in the woods of Left Gate Farm Nature Sanctuary.
Photo by Cliff Chapman
Photo by Cliff Chapman
By Maria Steiner,
Community Relations Director
4
lovers, so they have offered the
use of their land for future educational
field trips to Land Trust
members and our kids club.
And an educational resource it
is, with its well-maintained trail,
picturesque terrain, and cultural,
historical, and ecological
features. In fact, school groups
have been coming here as a field
trip destination for years. Nowadays,
they told us, it is harder
to get school groups out, due to
smaller field trip budgets and
tightly-controlled curriculum.
Left Gate Farm has been in the
Rice Family since 1935. At first
it was a weekend getaway. The
family would venture from their
home in what is now Meridian-
Kessler to this property for
picnics. They decided to build
a home here and use it as their
summer vacation spot instead of
Michigan, where they had previously
ventured. This allowed
their father to join them on the
weekends, rather than taking
two full days to drive to Michigan
in the pre-interstate system era.
The home was built in 1937 and
1938 from a single Idaho white
pine tree that was cut in 1919.
The home was designed by the
same architect that designed
the Abe Martin Lodge in Brown
County State Park, Richard
Bishop. Bob and Lou became
the first full-time residents of the
home in 1984, after adding on to
create space for their five children.
The Rice’s five children are
now grown and living scattered
around the Indianapolis area.
Perhaps most interesting about
this property is its Native American
history, in which Bob and
Lou are well-versed. In 1818,
the Treaty of St. Mary’s (Ohio)
forced the Delaware (Lenape)
Indian tribe to move west. As
they followed the buffalo trails
westward, their chief fell ill,
which forced them to stop and
camp at what is now the Rice
property. They ended up camping
atop this ridge for almost a
year before the chief died. Bob
and Lou can point out where
he was buried, because it was
marked by a large arrowhead
pointing west, the direction his
followers subsequently went.
The arrowhead mysteriously
disappeared some time ago. The
Native American component of
their property is a big part of
the educational information that
they have shared with schoolchildren
over the years.
Also of note are the flowing
wells on this property, which
attracted the first settlers in this
area. Those first settlers traded
with the Native Americans, thus
giving the area the name “Traders
Point.” This little
town, which no longer
exists, was comprised
of a grocery store, two
gas stations, eighteen
homes, and three
churches. What many
folks now call Traders
Point is actually slightly
off from the original
town of Traders Point.
The adjacent Scott Starling
Nature Sanctuary,
a portion of Eagle Creek Park
managed as a tall grass prairie,
was the inspiration for the Rices’
installation of a 10-acre prairie.
The prairie plants have been
carefully documented over the
years, just as the wildflowers in
the forest have been. Savannah
and field sparrows, along with
monarch and black swallowtail
butterflies can be found in the
prairie, as well as purple coneflower,
rattlesnake master, big
bluestem, and dozens of other
grassland species.
We are thrilled that the Rices
have chosen to permanently
protect and share their sanctuary
for native plants and animals
in the city of Indianapolis. We
also want to thank YOU, our
members, for helping us protect
natural areas for plants, animals
and people throughout central
Indiana.
Be sure to watch the newsletter or
sign up with your email address to
receive special invitations to visit
this and other natural areas in
Central Indiana.
Photo