A plan to expand the South Shore Line’s commuter service in western Lake County moved closer to reality recently.
The Federal Transit Administration approved the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District’s request to enter the project development phase of its West Lake Corridor project, U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky announced.
“I am excited to learn that the FTA has recognized the value of the South Shore expansion,” Visclosky said in a news release.
South Shore trains could be running along nine miles of new tracks from the Munster/Dyer border to Hammond, and then from Hammond into Chicago, in about six years if all goes according to plan.
It would be the first South Shore expansion in more than a century.
“We’re thrilled,” NICTD President Michael Noland said of the FTA’s decision.
He noted that NICTD also is seeking federal funding to build a second set of South Shore tracks between Gary and Michigan City.
The West Lake and double-track projects “are fundamental prerequisites to attracting new private development throughout the four-county region served by the South Shore Line,” Noland said in a news release.
The double-track plan entered the FTA’s project development phase earlier this year. Public meetings on that plan are scheduled in Gary, Porter and Michigan City.
The project development phase includes preliminary engineering, a final environmental impact statement, and documentation. The NICTD board has hired HDR Inc. for $20 million to oversee that part of the West Lake project. The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority allocated the money for that work.
NICTD’s goal is to complete the West Lake project development by the end of August 2017 and to seek the FTA’s project rating. If West Lake receives a high rating, it would be included in the proposed 2019 budget. If Congress approves that, construction could begin in 2020 and service would start in 2022. The cost would be $563 million in current dollars and, after inflation, $603 million in 2020, Noland said.
Tim Zorn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
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