The Northern
Indiana Commuter Transportation District’s Board of Directors has approved a
final route for the West Lake extension.
At its meeting
Friday morning, the board voted unanimously to adopt a route which will
extend south from a new “Hammond Gateway” station--located just west of the
current Hammond station--to a new South Hammond station, a new Munster Ridge
Road station, and its terminus at a new Munster/Dyer Main Street station.
As part of the
vote, the board also agreed to incorporate into the final route several
changes from NICTD’s original plans, in response to public comment:
* The platform of
the new South Hammond station will be moved further south in the direction
of 173rd and the parking split, so that parking lots will be located on both
the north and south sides of 173rd.
* The platform of
the new Munster Ridge Road station will be moved to the northwest corner of
Ridge Road and the railroad line, with parking moved to the north of Ridge
Road and west of Manor Ave. “As a result, the homes previously slated for
acquisition south of Ridge Road will no longer be required for the project,”
NICTD said.
* The layover
facility previously proposed for the Munster/Dyer Main Street station has
been moved to Hammond. “The southeast corner of Main Street and the railroad
line will still need to be acquired for the project but will include ADA
parking, a Kiss-N-Ride facility, water detention, and a power substation,”
NICTD said.
“I’m glad to see
that we have listened and are talking action on what residents of the
community wanted,” said Board Member Christine Cid, representing Lake
County.
NICTD’s next step
is to submit the West Lake extension to the Federal Transit Administration
for a project rating. If the project is approved to proceed to the next
phase--engineering--it will “await listing in the president’s budget in
early 2018,” NICTD noted. “Under the current schedule, construction would
begin in 2020 and end in 2022.”
HB 1144
Earlier in the
meeting, two of the primary confreres on HB 1144--which establishes tax
increment financing mechanisms for both the West Lake extension and NICTD’s
double-tracking project between Michigan City and Gary--spoke on the
legislation, which has been widely praised as a bipartisan boost for
economic development in Northwest Indiana.
“Getting four
different counties to agree that the sun comes up in the morning is hard to
do,” joked Rep. Hal Slager, R-15th. “But we managed to get this done.”
“I think this is
unambiguously positive for the region,” said Minority Leader Scott Pelath,
D-Michigan City. “Everyone worked so well together, cordially, in a
non-partisan fashion.”
Double-tracking,
Pelath noted, “will cut down on time and get more people working in Chicago
to live in the region.”
“It’s one thing to
talk about ideas but another to build them into something tested and true,”
said Bill Hanna, president and CEO of the Northwest Indiana Regional
Development Authority.
“Politics were
taken out of the equation but so was regionalism,” added Board Member Andrew
Kostielney, representing St. Joseph County.