By Charles M. Bartholomew, Post-Tribune correspondent
PORTAGE -- Lake County will have "a pretty good year" for bike trails in 2009, a regional trail advisory committee was told Thursday.
The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission's Ped, Pedal and Paddle Committee met Thursday in the pavilion at the newly dedicated Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk for Cornucopia 2008, a rundown of active bike trail projects from representatives of communities, agencies, and consultants working on a total of 45 projects in Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties.
"We'll have three construction projects and a whole lot of acquisitions,"said Craig Zandstra, assistant superintendent for the Lake County Parks and Recreation Department.
Zandstra reported on the status of more than $4.1 million in trail projects by his department, for which almost $3 million in federal and state funds have been allotted under Transportation Enhancement, Recreation Trails, Surface Transportation, and other programs.
He said a season-long construction of an underpass on the Oak Savannah Trail at Broadway in Gary will begin in late spring and be completed by the end of summer, using Federal Highway Administration funds secured by U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky.
"Broadway will be closed one lane at a time between 47th and 53rd Streets," Zandstra said.
He said the half-mile gap in the Oak Savannah Trail between Wisconsin and Lake Park Avenues in Hobart will be eliminated.
Contracts are expected to be awarded next summer on the three-quarter-mile Turkey Creek Corridor bicycle/pedestrian trail in Merrillville, he said.
Most exciting for the long run will be the start of land acquisition for the Veterans Memorial Trail, the Crown Point-to-Hebron link in the proposed American Discovery Trail through Indiana, according to Zandstra.
"By the end of this year we'll begin to acquire right-of-way between 113th Street and Broadway, where we'll have to apply for funding to rebuild the bridge that was taken out when Broadway was widened," he said.
He said land acquisition will continue to the city limits at Iowa Street in 2009.
Mitch Barloga, the committee's NIRPC representative, said taking the trail to the Porter County line for the final phase may be easier than expected, if it turns out that the right-of-way is owned by the Indiana Department of Transportation.
Jake Dammarell, construction engineer for Butler, Fairman & Seufert, noted that with the pending completion of the Pennsy Greenway from Hammond to Crown Point and the Penn-Erie connection to the Erie Lackawanna Trail in 2009, a Hammond-to-Hebron bike route is in sight.