BY MICHELLE QUINN, Post-Tribune
The commuter train's ridership increase has made it the fastest growing commuter rail line in the country.
Still coasting on numbers that started inching up last August, the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District has posted a 13 percent ridership in-crease for the year, just ahead of Dallas, with 12 percent, and Harrisburg, Pa., with 11.6 percent, said John Parsons, the agency's spokesman. NICTD reports its ridership numbers quarterly to the American Public Tranportation Association in Washington.
"This really started last August right after Katrina, when gas prices started to rise," he said. "Then we saw the real spike in gas prices and construction start on the Dan Ryan, and that's when the peak-period ridership took off."
Seasonal factors, such as students being out of school and the typical summer gas price jump, will factor into the equation, and ridership numbers are expected to be down when September's numbers are tabulated next week, Parsons said. But not by much.
"Growth has slowed some, but we're still way up over last year," he said. "We're still expecting to exceed 4.1 million total passengers for this year."
Costs certainly play into ridership for commuters Donna Alt of Highland and Kathy Bandura of Munster. But the cost of driving into the city versus the cost of taking public transportation makes commuting on the South Shore more attractive for them.
"I like the convenience of not having to pay for parking downtown. Plus, it's time to relax and visit with people," Bandura said. "It's also convenient to where I work."
On the other hand, for Alt, the train is anything but convenient.
"It's definitely not reliable," she said of the train. "But compared to the cost of parking and gas, it's the only alternative."
With such a sharp increase in riders, the South Shore's plans to extend the line to Lowell, Munster and Valparaiso may seem easy enough to justify, but other factors are at play. The federal government's method of determining population growth may put a crimp in the plans.
"They're not off the table," Parsons said. "Currently, the state and NIRPC don't use in-migration (or people coming into Indiana from Illinois) in their projections, claiming out-migration renders the number to zero. Because of that, we have population projections forecasted at 6 percent total until 2030, and that falls below federal guidelines.
"We are, however, working with Bill Sheldrake (president and founder of Policy Analytics in Indianapolis) to come up with our own population projections to see if that will help our case."
Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas agrees the numbers are deceiving, especially when his city alone is seeing 2 percent growth annually.
"The numbers the South Shore uses now don't paint an accurate picture, but we know they're working on it.
"We're very supportive of alleviating traffic and do want to see the South Shore come here."