Amanda Haverstick, The News-Dispatch
CHESTERTON - Should the time come for the South Shore tracks on 11th Street to move, they likely will head south.
Gerald Hanas, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District general manager, said a goal is to reduce travel time, and getting through Michigan City quicker helps achieve that.
"One of the big elephants in the room ... is the fact that we're running on the streets of Michigan City," Hanas said. "That's a big impediment to South Shore and Michigan City traffic."
Hanas reiterated to NICTD's board Friday that he believes a substantial amount of time can be cut by rerouting the track off 11th Street.
"It's a relic of the old interurban days where we went through the streets of Gary, through the streets of East Chicago and Hammond and for that matter South Bend," NICTD spokesman John Parsons said. "This is the last remaining piece we have. It's an extremely expensive piece of railroad to maintain, probably the most expensive two miles in our system."
Parsons said the tracks, ties and ballasts are buried under the street.
"Every so often, we have to go through and rip it all out and replace it," Parsons said. "Periodically, we have to go in, even after these massive excavation projects, and do detailed work later on. It really reduces the asphalt life Michigan City experiences with their street."
NICTD and Michigan City studied north and south alternatives to reroute the track.
"The north alternative we looked at was getting on the old Nickel Plate (railroad), which is owned by the SouthShore Freight," Parsons said.
A swing bridge along the route that crosses Trail Creek presents a fatal flaw in trying to use the northern route. One of the big issues, he said, is that the South Shore's maintenance and storage facilities are to the east of the swing bridge.
"If there's any problem with that swing bridge," Parsons said, "we don't have a rush hour in the morning."
Another proposal, he said, has been to build a bridge over Trail Creek.
"Because the freight service will be with us and will require a 2 percent grade, we will have to start our bridge ... going over U.S. 12. We'd probably be going through (downtown) Michigan City at 30 feet in the air, coming down probably at Lincoln Yard," Parsons said. "That was discounted early on in favor of a southern (route)."
Parsons said a southerly alignment would take the South Shore along the CSX Corp. tracks and NIPSCO utility corridor.
"We would join the South Shore at the cinder block company on U.S. 12 near the county line," he said.
NICTD and CSX would segregate operations with the South Shore running north of the CSX tracks.
New station facilities, Parsons said, will be located by Franklin Street near Ames Field.
"It would give us the opportunity to develop a pretty attractive station," Parsons said. "We have very limited parking in downtown Michigan City. At 11th Street, there are only 30 spaces and around 200 spaces at Carroll Avenue."
Parsons said a new station could offer 400 spaces.
The move south, Parsons said, would improve operating time and reduce the number of grade crossings from 32 to 17. The cost of such a project would range between $60 and $80 million.
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