Replacing rolling stock and extending service are among the big projects included in the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District’s new 20-year plan for the South Shore Line.
The NICTD board approved the new plan Monday.
Director of Strategic Planning and Grants Kelly Wenger said the 137-page plan has been in the works for 1.5 years.
“We were very concerned with ensuring we had the input from the public,” Wenger said, so the railroad heard from 4,400 passengers, 2,224 members of the public and 51 employees through surveys. Five peer railroads also offered input, she said.
As she went through the process, she learned a lot.
“The number of plans we have at NICTD really, truly shocked me,” she said. That includes a far-reaching 2014 plan. “We hit the ground with that 2014 plan and roughly completed it within 10 years,” including completing the Double Track NWI project between Gary and Michigan City. The Monon Corridor service is up and running, and the fourth track into Millennium Station is under construction.
The railroad has applied for three federal grants to relocate the station at South Bend International Airport, moving the station from the east side to the west side, which would eliminate more than a dozen grade crossings in the process, President David Dech told the NICTD board Monday.
Abolishing that many crossings should put the railroad in a good position to win at least one of the grants, but Dech isn’t taking chances. The railroad’s lobbying team in Washington, DC are working on the project, and Dech plans to knock on doors in the nation’s capital soon.
Replacing Gary Metro Station, which serves both South Shore Line trains and Gary Public Transportation Corp.’s buses, is in the works, too. The new station will include 12 bays for accommodating GPTC buses.
Hammond is building a downtown station with its own money. Construction is expected to be completed in a year.
NICTD is also considering adding a station in New Carlisle.
With the opening of the Monon Corridor, NICTD needs additional maintenance capacity, the plan said.
At the Michigan City facility, that would be accomplished by relocating the engineering, line and signal, and track and structures departments to the Pines yard.
The Pines yard would be reconfigured to make this happen.
In addition, a new maintenance facility would be built at Hammond to handle the Monon Corridor fleet.
In Gary, NICTD could change 17 grade crossings to develop a 7.5-mile quiet zone. Crossing recommendations include closing four crossings, converting six cross streets to one-way, adding medians at four crossings, and installing four-quadrant gates at three of the crossings.
Rather than adding a second set of tracks all the way from Michigan City to South Bend, sidings for freight trains could be added.
New rolling stock
Replacing rail cars will be a big priority in the plan.
“We do have a large fleet of rail cars,” Wenger said. That includes 68 that will reach the end of their useful life by 2035. NICTD has a total of 82 cars in its fleet; the average age is 33.9.
Half of the cars date to 1982 and 1983, just after NICTD took over operation of the South Shore Line.
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With the expansion of rail service through the Double Track NWI and Monon Corridor projects, NICTD leased 26 cars from Metra.
It takes 80 cars to operate existing service on the Lakeshore and Monon corridors, so federal standards say the railroad should have 100 cars instead of just 82. But with adding service primarily during off-peak times, the full fleet expansion might not be needed, according to the plan.
“We have to be proactive in engineering and making a purchase essentially next year,” Wenger told the board.
Among the options the railroad is looking at are hybrid battery-electric cars future extensions. Those wouldn’t require the overhead catenary system along the existing tracks.
Future rail expansions
Not requiring the catenary system would facilitate a series of potential rail expansions envisioned in the plan, including to a potential Chicago Bears stadium in Hammond if the Bears finally make up their mind where the stadium definitely will be built.
Trains could also be extended to Lowell from the Munster/Dyer border, to Valparaiso and Porter Regional Airport, to LaPorte and to downtown South Bend.
The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority’s 20-year strategic plan adopted last year includes the Lowell and Valparaiso routes.
“Although it is unlikely that a new corridor extension would be fully financed within the strategic plan’s 20-year horizon, advancing the preliminary design and environmental scoping for key corridors can move projects closer to implementation,” the plan says.
The Valparaiso extension was proposed as part of the original West Lake Corridor studies, but the ridership numbers weren’t there yet to support federal funding for it.
Partnerships
The South Shore Line is also looking at relationships with partner agencies.
That includes working with bus lines to better serve commuter students and shuttle services for large events like ones that could be held at the future Lake County Convention Center at the Hard Rock Casino in Gary and big tourism events.
The railroad is also looking at ways to coordinate fares with transit partners like the CTA and Metra. That could work easier if the South Shore Line switches to the Ventra fare platform used by the CTA and Metra. The South Shore Line will be reevaluating its current ticketing platform in 2028, which could be a good time to make the switch.
Partnering with Valparaiso’s ChicaGo DASH bus service could mean guaranteeing bus riders a trip home after the last bus from downtown Chicago leaves at 5:15 p.m. Workers and shoppers who stay later than that would be able to take the train. But that would require coordinating fares between the two services.
Shuttle services connecting to train stations would help with transporting workers to job sites. That could involve working with employers and chambers of commerce to help set them up.
Connections with the national and state parks as well at University of Notre Dame could be important, too. Shuttles for home football games already exist, but shuttles might work for other large university events or even daily, year-round service, according to the plan.
Transit-oriented development
Transit-oriented development, encouraging riders to live near stations, is already underway.
The former Calumet Bank building in downtown Hammond was transformed into The Banc, which includes apartments and an event space. Residents will be within walking distance of the new downtown Hammond station under construction.
Michigan City’s 11th Street Station is attached to The Franklin, a Flaherty & Collins development that is nearly completed. Interest in those condos has been high, the plan stated.
Transit development districts have been set up almost everywhere they’re authorized.
Valparaiso was authorized to have one, but Mayor Jon Costas said the city decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
The most recent district established was for Beverly Shores and the Town of Pines, which includes extending sewer service from Michigan City so developers wouldn’t need to rely on septic systems. That would make the two beachfront towns more attractive to developments like hotels.
Like the RDA, the railroad wants to connect visitors to communities that the railroad goes through.
Already, the railroad is creating YouTube videos to help visitors figure out how to get to destinations from South Shore Line stations. Other wayfinding means are being considered by partner agencies.
That would boost ridership but also potentially encourage visitors to move here.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.