Northwest Indiana stimulus road work requests submitted to INDOT

BY KEITH BENMAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
kbenman@nwitimes.com

Nearly $859 million in Northwest Indiana road projects are chasing the $21 million in federal stimulus funds that may flow to Northwest Indiana.

"We're ready to break the bank," Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission planner Gary Evers told a meeting of its Transportation Policy Committee on Tuesday.

The Indiana Department of Transportation is expecting to receive about $800 million in stimulus funds. It plans to divvy out 25 percent of that for local projects.

Evers presented the NIRPC committee with a list of 419 road projects local municipalities and counties want to fund with stimulus money.

And there is another list of almost $72 million in other transportation projects that would like a boost from the same $21 million pot of gold.

Both lists have been submitted to INDOT.

Also this week, NIRPC planners are meeting with local public transit providers to decide how to divvy up some $25 million in stimulus money that is expected to flow to them.

"We have to be prepared to move as quickly as we can because no one will be waiting for us," Evers said.

Projects Northwest Indiana communities have requested range from a $17.5 million railroad overpass in Munster to a $100,000 bridge rehabilitation on Old Lincoln Highway over Deep River.

Details still are emerging on how projects actually will be chosen, NIRPC planner Tom Vander Woude said. He expects NIRPC to have a hand in the selection process.

A couple of months ago, INDOT asked planning groups across the state to submit lists of shovel-ready local projects that could use the stimulus money.

INDOT already has included one Northwest Indiana project, the resurfacing of Ind. 149 between U.S. 6 and U.S. 20, in its own list of 27 projects that may get stimulus money.

The discussion on which projects should get funding is quickly becoming more than just an academic one, with both houses of Congress having passed stimulus bills in the past two weeks. Now the two bills have to be reconciled into one that both chambers can pass.

The House bill calls for $820 billion in spending and tax cuts and the Senate version for $838 billion.