The Twelve Points District in north Terre Haute was once one of the busiest areas in Vigo County. Over the years, the neighborhood and its once-thriving businesses found themselves declining from changes in transportation and industry since the 1950s. Today, the district is in a new period of growth and business development. Yet, there is not a convenient and safe corridor for people to travel to Twelve Points. Additionally, much of the area’s infrastructure is dilapidated, intersections are unsafe, and the sidewalks are nearly 100 years old. Leaders of the Twelve Points Revitalization organization want to find a pedestrian-friendly solution to make the community safe and easy so more people can Twelve Points.

Three Rose-Hulman Civil Engineering students — Rylan Miller, Christian Meyer and Lucas Chesney— took on this challenge as their senior design project. The students gathered information from community members to create an engineering plan to help bring the neighborhood’s infrastructure to working and safe conditions. The students came up with a plan to redesign an entirely new street for bicyclists and pedestrians, which separates vehicular travel. They proposed replacing the neighborhood’s 6-way intersection with a roundabout to ensure consistent traffic flow. They designed water resources to handle run-off and overflow, ensuring there is no standing water or pollution into the Wabash River. 

Revitalization leadership plan to take the Civil Engineering students’ plans, renderings and data to local community leaders, as well as use the students’ plans to seek grant funding to implement their solutions. For the students, this project was a culmination of their undergraduate years at Rose-Hulman. They were able to not only use their technical knowledge, but also the problem-solving abilities to help complete a project for an external client.