Vincent Kaczmer stood before the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District board Monday, unfolding a paper schedule.
“Your new schedule, for the average person, is very confusing,” he said.
Kaczmer took the Monon Corridor schedule for trains between Hammond and Dyer and put it under the schedule for the Lakeshore Corridor route, for trains between South Bend and Millennium Station, to separate the two routes.
He rode the train recently. “Going back was totally confusing in that schedule, hard to figure out who, what and where to go,” he said.
Kaczmer handed his schedule to President and General Manager David Dech, who agreed with him.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I can’t figure out the schedule,” Dech said. “Let’s sit down and start over.
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“I guarantee that we’re going to change this and make it simpler to use and easier to use,” he promised.
Dech has been on the job since March, just before the Monon Corridor service began operating.
Jim Nowacki brought up the extension of the CTA’s Red Line, for which the South Shore Line’s Chicago counterpart had a groundbreaking ceremony recently.
“The South Shore doesn’t have any stops between Hegewisch and Hyde Park,” Nowacki said, and that’s a long stretch between stations.
Before the CTA broke ground for its Red Line extension, it of course sought public comment on the plan. “Much of the public comment is there is no stop that connects the Red Line extension to the South Shore,” Nowaki said.
“They said that the South Shore does not want to serve ‘those people’,” Nowacki said. “I couldn’t argue with that, because I believe the South Shore doesn’t want to serve those people.”
“The Red Line has 110,000 boardings every day,” he said, and is expecting another 40,000 riders once the Red Line extension is complete. “Those numbers are incredible.”
“The entire South Side of Chicago is ignored,” between Hegewisch and Hyde Park, Nowacki said. “It seems to be a shame when the public is convinced that the South Shore doesn’t want to serve those people, whoever those people are.”
Dech said working out changes in the schedule, connecting with the Red Line and adding stops in Illinois are all subjects for discussion with Metra. That’s Metra’s territory, so he wants to make sure the South Shore Line isn’t poaching customers from Metra even though he would welcome the opportunity to serve those riders.
The opening of the Obama Presidential Center next month is another opportunity for South Shore Line riders, Gary Mayor and NICTD board member Eddie Melton said.
The South Shore Line is cooperating with Metra on a $200 million project to add a fourth rail line into Millennium Station. Adding bidirectional signaling to better coordinate train traffic both ways is part of the project. That should finish up in the first quarter of 2027, Dech said.
On-time performance is near-perfect so far along the Monon Corridor route, Chief Operating Officer Anthony Hall said, at 97%.
The Monon Corridor, which effectively began service April 1, accounted for 11.3% of the railroad’s revenue last month, Director of Strategic Planning and Grants Kelly Wenger said.
The Lakeshore Corridor route issues, including busing to accommodate construction of the fourth rail line into Millennium Station, bring down the overall metric to 80.7%.
“We’ve had a tree in the lines at least once a week for the past six weeks,” Dech said, so the railroad is talking with neighboring property owners about taking trees down before they fall on their own. Dech said 99 out of 100 agree, “one very much not so.”
The goal is to get the Lakeshore Corridor metrics closer to the Monon Corridor metrics, Valparaiso Mayor and NICTD board member Jon Costas said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.