3rd Street

Third Street looking east from the railroad bridge

Third Street is the main East-West street on the southern border of the Indiana University campus. It's a two-way street from the 45/46 Bypass to S. Mitchell Street. It becomes one way, in the west-bound direction, until Dunn Street; during this leg of one way westbound status, Atwater Avenue runs one way eastbound to provide bilateral traffic flow.

3rd Street then continues through town until it eventually intersects State Road 37. When 3rd Street crosses Rogers Street, it enters the Prospect Hill neighborhood and eventually terminates into a "T" intersection with Patterson Drive near the Rose Hill Cemetery. Rather than travel through the neighborhood, most people head north on Rogers to catch West 5th Street (Kirkwood Avenue east of College Avenue), which bypasses Prospect Hill and the cemetery to rejoin with 3rd Street on the other side of the neighborhood. After Prospect Hill, it becomes a major road once again and continues west for about 1.25 miles until an interchange with SR 37 where it becomes SR 48 and continues on past the Whitehall Crossing shopping center and Curry Pike.

By the Bloomington Convention Center downtown, by Andrew Stoeckley.

Landmarks passed on 3rd Street

• College Mall
• Eastland Plaza
• Mother Bear's
• Jacobs School of Music
• Bloomington Police Headquarters
• Bloomington Convention Center
• Prospect Hill historic neighborhood
• Southern Indiana Pediatrics (west branch)
• ShowPlace West 12 movie theatres
• Whitehall Crossing shopping center
• St. Charles Borromeo Church

Trivia

• In June 1988, the speed limit was lowered from 30 MPH to 25 MPH on the section that borders Indiana University. This was done after the history department collected over 2500 signatures on a petition after the death of a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History, Ssu-yu Teng. He was struck and killed in April of 1988.

• Third Street used to have no stops from Jordan to Indiana. On November 28th, 1992 an 86-year old mathematics professor, Max Zorn, was struck by a truck driven by Robert Jerrels when trying to cross. Zorn eventually died from his injuries on March 9th, 1993. Within a month of Zorn's death, after much public outcry, the City of Bloomington installed traffic lights at Hawthorne Drive and Woodlawn Avenue.

Videos

This is an old video from 2007 of traveling from the west side where 3rd street curves around and turns into Kirkwood Avenue.