By Keith Benman, Times of Northwest Indiana
keith.benman@nwi.com
A $90.6 million plan to replace the superstructure of Cline Avenue over the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal in 2012 is now up in the air after the state ordered the critical industrial artery closed last week.
Just three days after the emergency closure, the Indiana Department of Transportation released a draft of a four-year transportation plan that includes replacing the bridge among other statewide projects.
Now the Cline Avenue bridge-replacement plan will serve as a "place holder" for federal highway funds until an engineering review of the current problems is completed, INDOT spokeswoman Angela Fegaras said.
"Until we get a thorough review, we don't want to make speculative comments," Fegaras said. "The rumor mills are going crazy right now."
INDOT officials have not yet determined if the current 1.25 mile-long bridge span can be reopened or if it has already outlived its useful lifetime.
The new bridge span would not be completed until at least 2012, according to the draft plan. That raises the possibility of a three-year closure of the road, which carries steel shipments in and out of local steel mills and casino patrons to gaming boats.
Fegaras on Friday said she could not speculate on how long the road might be closed or what changes may be made in the draft plan for replacing it.
Transportation planners said last week's events could send INDOT back to the drawing board when it comes to the more than two-decades-old span.
"They are kind of at a fork in the road," said Steve Strains, deputy director of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission. "They have to decide, do they repair it or do they build it entirely new?"
Much has changed since the Cline Avenue extension was built in the early 1980s, including a decline in traffic volumes, NIRPC transportation planner Bill Brown said. Also, the large ships envisioned for the ship canal never arrived.
That means in any rebuilding, the bridge could be lowered, and it may be possible to change the number of lanes, Brown said.
But the expressway should definitely stay.
"Keeping the expressway there is important, both in terms of employment and the shipping of goods in and out of steel mills," Brown said.
The expressway also is a major obstacle when it comes to opening up the lakefront to East Chicago residents under U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky's Marquette Greenway Plan. The city plans to build an overpass for cars and pedestrians over Cline Avenue and the railroad tracks that currently separate neighborhoods from the lake.
When asked Friday how rebuilding the elevated portion of the road might affect the Marquette plan, Visclosky's office said right now his primary concern is the safety of people traveling on Cline. Visclosky said he would need more information on the INDOT project to determine how it might affect lakefront access.
INDOT ordered the six-mile stretch of Cline Avenue closed from Calumet Avenue in Hammond to Columbus Avenue in East Chicago on Nov. 13. The state agency said corrosion where 70-foot-tall concrete piers meet the bridge's deck had significantly damaged the elevated road in the area of the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal bridge.
Motorists are still allowed to use the road from the south if they are accessing the Ameristar Casino or the steel mills.
The elevated structure crosses much more than just the ship canal. It also takes cars and trucks over multiple sets of railroad tracks, Riley Road and industrial areas. It carries 35,000 vehicles per day.
Those piers still would be used under INDOT's current plan for bridge replacement, with the project plan calling mainly for the replacement of the road and its steel undercarriage.
The $2.7 billion four-year draft plan for transportation improvements across the state was released Monday.
INDOT is taking written comments on the draft through its Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan Web site at www.in.gov/indot/2926.htm.