Work begins on $11M pedestrian bridge project linking Monon, Nickel Plate trails

A pedestrian bridge being built over the White River comes with a price tag of $11 million but officials said it is worth the investment to link the Monon and Nickel Plate trails, two of the most prominent trail systems in the state.

“This will connect and help create one of the largest trail systems in Midwest,” Delaware Township Trustee Debbie Driskell said. “It is much needed because the ways to cross the river now are not conducive to walking and biking.”

The crossing at 106th Street near Allisonville Road will reach from Carmel’s Hazell Landing Park to Fishers’ Heritage Park, providing a way for users – through trail links – to get from the Monon Trail in Carmel to the Nickel Plate Trail in Fishers.

The cost of the 500-foot-long, 14-foot wide span and connections is being shared by several agencies and is higher than what Fishers paid for the tunnel under the Nickel Plate, or has budgeted for a Nickel Plate bridge over 96th Street. But that’s because it's more expensive to build the bridge near the environmentally sensitive river, said Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation Director Michael Klitzing.

More: Live next to the Nickel Plate Trail? The feds could owe you tens of thousands of dollars.

“The complexity is that the bridge is predominately constructed within the floodway,” Klitzing said in an email. “Due to … other projects along the river, we had to design the bridge to minimize backwater, to effectively avoid an impact to the flow of water in the river.”

Klitzing also said construction costs have risen in the last couple of years and the first choice for the bridge's location, near Conner Prairie, was scrapped because it would have cost even more.

Clay Township is providing the bulk of the funding, $5 million; followed by the Carmel Clay Parks, $3 million; Hamilton County, $1.6 million; Delaware Township, $1.3 million; and the city of Fishers, $400,000.

Not all the money is dedicated to the bridge itself.

Roughly $1.5 million will be used for a trail linking the bridge to Hazell Dell Parkway and a trailhead parking lot on the Carmel side. Delaware Township’s $1.3 million will fund the approach to the bridge and connection to the 106th Street pedestrian trail on the Fishers side.

Construction of the bridge has begun and it is expected to be finished in August, 2025, Fishers corporation counsel Lindsey Bennett said at a recent city council meeting.

The connection will allow bicyclists and joggers on the multi-use path on 106th Street to travel a seven-mile distance between the Monon and the Nickel Plate on dedicated paths along 106th Street. It will also connect with the White River Greenway in Carmel, which is being lengthened 2.5 miles northward to 146th Street.

Eventually the Nickel Plate and Monon will connect to the south in Indianapolis at 42nd Street when Indianapolis finishes its portion of the Nickel Plate Trail. A connection between the trails will also be forged in the north when Midland Trace Trail through Noblesville and Westfield is complete.

Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418. Email at john.tuohy@indystar.com and follow on X/Twitter and Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Work starts on trail link for Monon, Nickel Plate in Carmel, Fishers