The Marquette Greenway is getting closer to completion, but the sections that remain are the hardest ones.
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“We have 10 miles of trail that are being developed now and will probably be finished by next spring at this rate,” Mitch Barloga said. Barloga, active transportation planner at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, counts himself as one of the trail’s two biggest proponents for Indiana. The other is Rafi Wilkerson, who handles the National Park Service sections.
When finished, the Marquette Greenway will stretch about 60 miles from Calumet Park in Chicago to New Buffalo, Michigan.
As of October, 39 miles will have been built, nine miles fully funded and 12 miles partly funded, Barloga said.
Burns Harbor and Porter are each working on sections of the trail. “Hopefully they’re going to meet in the same place,” Barloga quipped, a reference to the transcontinental railroad that joined the east and west segments in 1869.
The Burns Harbor section stops short of the Norfolk Southern bridge over the Little Calumet River. It’s going to go under the tracks, on to Beam Street in Porter, around Indiana Dunes National Park’s Minoke Prairie and to the trailhead at Howe Road, which serves the Little Calumet River Trail.
That trail isn’t as developed as the Marquette Greenway’s paved route, Barloga said. The Little Calumet River Trail is more of a footpath. For the Marquette Greenway connection, it will become a proper trailhead.
The trail will connect all the way to the NIRPC building in Portage where Barloga works.
Another section being completed is to Broadway in Beverly Shores. “It’s taking the trail off the Calumet Trail corridor that people have understood to be under the NIPSCO power lines,” Barloga said, and provides a more scenic route.
Standing on a NIPSCO easement, the Calumet Trail also was subject to being torn up any time NIPSCO needed to do so. That’s a deterrent to federal funding for a trail along that route.
The route between Ind. 49 and Kemil Road is already done. “Now we’re looking to get the project finished to Broadway by the end of this year,” Barloga said.
A trail that stops and starts isn’t going to work well for avid bike riders like Barloga and Wilkerson.
The trail is about $30 million short of being fully funded, Barloga said. “There’s lots left.”
From Chicago, the trail goes mostly north of the Indiana Toll Road, running along to U.S. 20. The Indiana Department of Transportation is paving a barricaded bike lane across the Canadian National tracks. Riders will enjoy seeing the Seidner Dune and Swale nature preserve in Hammond.
There’s an old South Shore Line bridge over the Indiana Toll Road that will need to be refurbished for the Marquette Greenway to use it in the future, Barloga said.
On the other side of the trail, there’s good news.
“Michigan is almost done. They have a half mile left,” Barloga said. The Marquette Greenway goes to a railroad crossing, then “you’re on a very, very quiet side street that runs along the railroad.” That means riders can go safely from Long Beach in Indiana to New Buffalo “for anybody who has even basic skills of bicycling.”
The Michigan City section includes a section that goes from Karwick to El Portal, about 2.9 miles. “That’s all part of this RAISE grant,” meaning it’s fully funded. Barloga hopes that’s built in the next couple of years.
The segments from the NIRPC building in Portage to points westward are the main challenge.
In Portage, the trail is planned to go across Burns Ditch on a new bridge the Portage Redevelopment Commission is planning to build with a new $15 million bond issue. But getting to the bridge from NIRPC is a challenge because Burns Parkway needs to be extended, and that road isn’t likely to be built until the 300 acres the RDC owns in that area are sold and a development plan approved.
One option might be to take the trail north along Ind. 249 to Portage Lakefront Park and Riverwalk, using the bridge that accesses that section of Indiana Dunes National Park. “We’re still in a state of limbo” over that route, Barloga said.
Going that route would take the trail past a new steel heritage museum planned for the site of Portage’s open-air pavilion, where an ice rink operated last winter. The pavilion has been historically underutilized.
Going across the RDC’s planned bridge would connect the trail to Stagecoach Road, then on to the South Shore Line’s Portage/Ogden Dunes station. That’s a winding route. “Someone was drunk when they designed all the roads up there. It’s crazy,” Barloga said.
The trail would go along the perimeter of Ogden Dunes to West Beach, then on to the Douglas Center parking lot in Gary’s Miller area, where the trail now ends. That’s all National Park Service property.
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The next segment is from the Douglas Center to Broadway, where the old Union Station building is located. “That is high on their priority list,” Barloga said. The National Park Service probably has enough money for engineering but needs to come up with construction dollars.
The RAISE grant also includes the west Gary phase, from Bridge Street, where the trail now terminates, on to Cline Avenue. This is the pricey section – about $22 million to $23 million for the three-mile route because of all the bridges that have to be dealt with. Barloga expects that stretch will be broken into bite-sized phases. He hopes Gary will be able to help with the construction cost.
From Broadway to the Douglas Center is 3.6 miles, all National Park Service responsibility. “The national park segments are significant,” Barloga said. That route includes a bridge over Lake Street and the Norfolk Southern tracks. “Did you know we have a lot of railways in this area?”
There’s about five miles or so along National Park Service trails and about three miles outside the park for the city to do, Barloga said.
“We have a lot of energy happening on both ends of it, and this is going to be a last major connection.”
That just leaves a couple of minor areas to do.
“It’s very difficult geographically to build a new trail,” Barloga said, because of the river, railroads, industries and environmental concerns.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.