If a federally competitive grant is approved, a one-mile stretch from West Lafayette Street and Airways Boulevard to the U.S. Highway 45 Bypass will receive an extreme makeover.

“Today, we talked about the Raise Grant to rebuild one mile of Airways Boulevard from (West) Lafayette at King Tire down to the (U.S. Highway 45) bypass,” said Jennie Keel, TLM Associates CEI supervisor, “We are going to apply (Thursday) for the grant, and we should hear in September … a $24 million grant that will include the full replacement of Airways Boulevard – the driving lanes, new sidewalks, landscaping, lighting and bike lanes – so it’s going to be a full reconstruction from the dirt up to rebuild Airways for the full mile.”

The Raise Grant evolved when the U.S. Department of Transportation published a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for $1.5 billion in grant funding through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) discretionary grant program.

Keel said the makeover is also what is needed to take care of needed maintenance on Airways Boulevard, converting from a four-lane roadway to a two-lane roadway with a continuous center turn lane – 33-feet for traffic, 11-feet for vehicles traveling east and west and a turn lane that is also 11-feet wide.

Existing lanes are 9.5 feet wide.

Sidewalks will be five-feet wide; bike lanes will be four-feet in width and two, varied width grass strips will also be located between the bike lanes and the sidewalk.

“The original Airways Boulevard is concrete panels, and we’re taking all of that out and rebuilding a new roadway that hopefully will last 20- to 30-years and won’t require so much maintenance.”

Keel said the project is 100 percent federally funded and – if approved – will begin construction in September 2025 and should be completed in 18- to 24-months.

(Rendering: Airways Boulevard)