Dunes Blog

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According to the Times today, the Valparaiso to Chicago shuttle bus has been finalized. They’ve set a launch date of October 6th and they’re calling it the ChicaGo Dash.

Two buses will depart from Valparaiso at Franklin House at 5:45 am and 6:15 am. The fares have been set at $7.50 each way, which isn’t that much more than a train fare from Dune Park or Ogden Dunes. You must reserve your seat in advance, no standing room only like on the South Shore.

Return trips will leave from Michigan and Randolph downtown at 4:35 and 5:20. You’ll be home around 6:15 and 7. Not bad, if you ask me. You’ll still have most of the evening left and be home in time for prime time TV.

The buses sound pretty luxurious. They will have free WiFi internet access, satellite TV, bike racks, bathrooms and plugs for laptops. So, it will be perfect for people who need to get work done during their commute or just want to screw off on the internet.

I think this is a great development for Valparaiso. I hope that it’s popular so that the numbers justify more buses with more flexible schedules. If the numbers are high enough, eventually the ridership will already exist for the planned Valparaiso South Shore extension.

I have no plans personally to use the bus, I don’t work in Chicago and don’t plan to again. Been there done that. But it’s great for the existing commuters and anyone considering moving to the area. Where else can you live so cheaply and still get paid the big Chicago bucks (honestly, that’s a slight misconception, I make more here…)?

Lunacy.

That’s one word describes the plan. I’m an not in support of the closure of the Miller South Shore stop at all. I think it will be a terrible mistake that will hurt commuters and damage long term growth on the South Shore line. If anything the South Shore needs to be adding stations, not removing them.

This is just the latest attempt at building a Potemkin Village in downtown Gary. The logic behind closing the Miller Station is that it will force people to go to the new Gary Metro Center that’s being built by private developers. I want to know what the developers are smoking.

Do they really think that people will drive an extra 10-15 minutes to a new station, pay $3 a day to park, risk their car getting broken into or stolen just to take one for the team and support the new station? Nope, they most certainly will not. The current Gary Downtown South Shore station is underused and in perfectly good nick. The inconvenienced commuters will just drive over to Ogden Dunes South Shore stop, which is already at capacity or simply stop using the service all together, which is the last thing the South Shore needs while it’s trying to gain funding for it’s Valpariaso and Lowell extension. Mass transit needs encouragement for environmental reasons and congestion reasons, don’t give people a reason to ditch it for their cars.

Thankfully, the NICTD is rather dubious about the whole plan and that much was clear this past Friday when the consenus seemed to be that they won’t support closure of the Miller station but are going to have a vote on it at a future date. Miller residents and rail enthusiasts are making their voices heard and it looks like the powers that be might actually listen to them.

If this development of downtown Gary ever actually comes into fruition, let it stand on it’s own merits, don’t hold commuters hostage for the benefit of a private developer. Either way, Gary is a graveyard of failed revitalization efforts. The current downtown Metro center was the last attempt to draw people downtown and it didn’t work. Just look at the abandoned supermarket next to 80-94 for more proof.

Lunacy. I hope better heads prevail and commuters win on this one.

Well, get on with it guys.

That’s what I have to say to those pushing to build an extension of the South Shore Line. This is something that I wholeheartedly support. The plan on the table it to extend the South Shore Line to run south through Lake County and terminating in Lowell and to run it southwest into Porter County, terminating in Valparaiso.

They have been talking about doing this for years. And every year it becomes increasingly more necessary that they actually do it. The population in Northwest Indiana is exploding. People are discovering that it’s cheap land and closeness to Chicago make it an attractive place to commute from. Currently, people are stuck either driving to Chicago from Lowell or Valparaiso or in the case of Valparaiso, driving way out of the way to take a train from the Dune Park Station.

Anyone that has ever tried to take the train from Dune Park knows that it’s at capacity. Despite the fact that they’ve built a new parking lot, it’s still always full as are the trains. Oftentimes during morning commutes on the South Shore, it is standing room only.

The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, or NICTD, has bought new train cars which will be arriving soon, to help alleviate some of the overcrowding. But that is only a temporary solution. The long term solution is to build new commuter lines.

The project will cost nearly $1 billion. This money has to come somewhere and it’s proving hard to come by. The federal government won’t open it’s coffers until the Regional Development Authority (RDA) can prove that population growth is high enough for justify the cost.

There are many reasons why South Shore Expansion is a good thing. It will ease overcrowding on the highways, it will encourage population growth in Northwest Indiana, it will make Chicago more accessible to Hoosiers while also providing a greener way for people to commute to work. The economic benefits of it are sound. Wages would most likely rise in the area as business will have to compete with Chicago for the same labor pool.

People seem to forget that Amtrak used to run a line to Valparaiso many years ago and the NITCD is studying the prospect of simply using the old line to run the new service. This seems like the most logical solution to the problem since the track and the rights of way are already there. The biggest cost of building the proposed extensions is purchasing the rights of way and laying new track. I think I heard that it costs something like $1 million a mile to lay new track.

Many people are afraid of what South Shore Line Expansion will bring. Some say it will bring Chicago’s problems to the quiet corners of Indiana. Some say it will cause the local population to grow too quickly. Some argue that it will cost too much and provide little economic benefit. I don’t believe any of those arguments.

Let’s hope legislative support is strong this year and that they can finally put this project on the front burner.

If you’re interested in support the South Shore Line Expansion Project, then go ahead and show your support by signing this petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/CESSL/petition.html

Trains are a way of life in Northwest Indiana. Because of our location at the bottom tip of Lake Michigan and the fact that we are as central as in gets in the US, NWI is bisected by many major freight and passenger rails lines. It is, to say the least, a pain in the butt sometimes. We could all probably go on a week’s vacation with all the time we’ve been sitting at railroad crossings.

The reason I bring this up is there is another train related accident in the news. Some teenager was walking along the railroad tracks, most likely listening to his iPod and got hit by a train. A couple weeks ago a two year old was hit by a train in Hobart. A further few weeks ago someone was killed up in Miller by a train because they decided to go around the gates.

I continue to be baffled by this. People, we’ve grown up being around these trains our whole lives. Why is it so hard for people to understand the danger they represent? Why can’t people understand basic safety when it comes to trains.

It’s simple. Never go around railroad crossing gates. EVER unless directed by a cop. Don’t walk along railroad tracks, especially wearing headphones.

Train travel is an important mode of transportation, it keeps the economy moving, it moves commuters and it’s much more environmentally friendly. The train companies do their best as far as safety goes, but they can only do so much. It’s up to regular people to do their part by showing some intelligence.

I feel bad for these people that get killed or injured by trains. I really do and I’m certainly not say that they deserve it. But I feel more sympathy for the poor men (and women) who drive these trains and have no control whatsoever over what they hit. Not only are you putting yourself at huge risk by going around the railroad gates, you could end up ruining someone’s life. All they did was go to work that day and because you couldn’t wait five minutes for the gates to go up, you destroyed yourself and the life of someone who didn’t have a choice. You never hear about the train drivers in these tragic stories.

I grew up in Ogden Dunes and have been the witness to may train tragedies over the years. There’s gotta be a better way to protect level train crossings to prevent this stuff. In the United Kingdom, they have gates that you simply cannot go around. Why can’t we do that here?

After one of the South Shore tragedies a few years ago in front of the former Midwest Steel plant, the state decided to best to way to prevent an accident like that from happening again was to simply build a bridge over the tracks. Problem solved. This is just one example.

It’s not feasible to replace all the crossing gates in the country nor is it feasible to build bridges over every crossing. But in a densely populated area like Northwest Indiana, there has to be a solution to a problem like this.

It all starts in the home. Parents need to drill into their children the basics of train safety. Respect your life by respecting the trains.