INDIANAPOLIS — A viewer reached out to RTV6 saying that her road is so damaged she doesn't feel safe when she walks it. A path she walks every day to care for her family.
Verdell Berry walks to her 92-year-old Aunt's house every day. It is filled with pitfalls and potholes between 32nd Street and Nicholas Street and 32nd Street and Baltimore Street.
"I want to feel safe walking. I have a knee brace that helps stabilize me from not tripping and falling," Berry said. "I feel if it was fixed, it would be better."
She makes that same trek every day to assist her aunt. Ruby Slater can get around the house with a walker but suffers pain in her back and feet.
Slater has thoughts about the condition of 32nd Street.
"It's awful. You see ditches. That's what it is - ditches," Slater said. "Holes, holes, big holes."
Most people avoid driving on the street, but while RTV6 crews were there, a landscaper drove his truck through the gauntlet. That drive is a shock to the chassis and a threat to the wheels and tires.
The area in question is between two churches - New Vision Ministries and Universal Church of Truth.
"The school bus actually has to come through here," Pastor Kim Grave, New Vision Ministries, said. "I saw this last week and the kids, and everybody on the bus was just wobbling from left to right. I thought it was very concerning."
In a statement, the Department of Public Works said:
"There are a few drainage projects planned for this area to vastly improve the drainage, which will protect the lifespan of the infrastructure, including the road you've inquired about."
"No street in this city - period. No street in the city should look like that," Courtney Long, Universal Church of Truth building superintendent, said.
The first project to fix the street will enter the design phase this summer with construction to follow.
