Study: Northwest Indiana region's transit system undersized

BY JEFF BURTON, Times of Northwest Indiana
Jeff.Burton@nwitimes.com

PORTAGE | Expanding Northwest Indiana's public transit offerings is a Chicago-sized undertaking, with a much smaller residential base to pick up the tab, a recent state-sponsored study found.

Brian Piascik, a representative with URS Corp., the company that conducted the study on Indiana's mass transit systems for the Department of Transportation, told members of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission on Thursday morning that many systems around the state are undersized and not designed to attract choice riders. He said while 66 percent of Hoosiers think there needs to be more funding to expand offerings, only 24 percent are willing to have their taxes increased to pay for it.

What's more is that the study found 77 percent of Northwestern Indiana residents have never used public transportation and less than 3 percent are regular users, among the lowest in the state.

But, Lake County Surveyor George VanTil, a member of NIRPC's executive board, said the data might not be indicative of what NIRPC and others consider to be Northwest Indiana, because it consists of 15 counties stretching from the Illinois border, east to Elkhart County and south to near Kokomo.

"I'm sure if you're looking at your three-county area the numbers would be higher," Piascik said.

Piascik said one of the problems with doing a statewide study is that ordinarily, transit is a regional or local topic.

"The benefits are realized locally," Piascik said.

While fuel prices can cause bumps in ridership, Piascik said in areas like the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, an area he said shares some similarities with Northwest Indiana and its proximity to Chicago, additional investments in public transit have resulted in increased ridership and other benefits like air quality improvements.

An interesting thing he found in the study, though, was the number of trips made each day across the Lake and Porter county line. Piascik said while the focus of transit expansion has been on the Chicago commute, some 194,000 trips are made by people traveling across the county line, signaling that there could be a demand for a public transit option there.