By KEVIN NEVERS

Over the last couple of weeks Chesterton motorists have probably noticed the traffic counters laid across select roadways in town: C.R. 1050N, for example, and Porter Ave.

Sometimes the Street Department uses a counter when the Police Commission wants to know whether a warrant exists, say, for the installation of a stop sign at an intersection.

These counters, however, have been laid by the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) as part of an ongoing study of traffic volume in the region.

NIRPC planner Bill Brown told the Chesterton Tribune today that, in accord with its federal mandate, NIRPC tries to update its traffic data every three years in communities throughout Porter, Lake, and LaPorte counties. “The information helps us to identify when we have traffic congestion,” he said. “We use it to consider alternative ways of reducing congestion.”

NIRPC does use computer models to construct “a synthetic picture of traffic volume,” Brown added. “But we try to use real data too.”

In Chesterton counters have been placed at a number of “stations”: C.R. 1050N east of Ind. 49 and east of C.R. 200E; C.R. 1100N east of C.R. 125W and east of South Calumet Road; Meridian Road south of C.R. 1100N; West Porter Ave. east of 12th Street; and C.R. 250E south of East Porter Ave.

“We scatter the counters around,” Brown noted, “We cover a lot of the minor arterials and collector streets not under the jurisdiction of the Indiana Department of Transportation.”

NIRPC has its eye not only on traffic growth but on population growth as well. “We do track building permits to monitor development,” Brown said.

Because the data have not yet been downloaded from the counters, Brown was unable to say whether they point to any trends. But when collected and collated those data will be available to communities and developers.

For his part Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg said that he would be very interested in seeing the results of these latest traffic counts.

Posted 10/26/2007