‘History will mark this day’
Cline Avenue, the quickest way to get to Chicago from Northwest Indiana, reopens as a toll road
The Region’s quickest way to get to Chicago is now back in business, but for first time ever, the convenience comes with a price.
More than 100 dignitaries and donors to a matching grant drive for the Boys & Girls Club Katherine House of East Chicago and Lake Area United Way lined up on the newly constructed East Chicago section of the Cline Avenue Bridge on Wednesday morning to be among the first to drive on the long-condemned section of road.
The road almost didn’t happen at all after the state shut it down in early 2009, Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Dave Ryan reminded the crowd. After the shutdown due to safety concerns then-Gov. Mitch Daniels told North Lake County stakeholders in April 2009 that no, the state wouldn’t be rebuilding it and if they didn’t come up with a solution, the bridge would come down in September, he said.
“A lot of us — a consortium — sat together for months and months, trying to get some traction, and we weren’t getting any traction,” Ryan said. “A couple things happened in my life; my brother was killed in an accident and about a week later, this woman with a Southern accent calls the Lakeshore Chamber and says, ‘I’d like to talk to you about the Cline Avenue Bridge.’ I said, ‘Lady, the last thing on mind right now is the Cline Avenue Bridge after the hundreds and hundreds of meetings we had,’ and she says, ‘What if I can build it for free?’
“I said, ‘Now you’re talking.’ ”
The process took another couple of years of wrangling, Ryan said, but by the time Daniels was ready to give Tallahassee-based Figg Bridge Group President and CEO Linda Figg 15 minutes, the deal was done in an hour and a half.
Forty-two months and hundreds of union jobs later, the bridge, which follows the same path as the former bridge, is ready, but it comes at a price: With an EZ-Pass or I-Pass, the toll for two-axle vehicles is $2.50, $6.50 for three-axle vehicles and $10.50 for five-axles, according to a sign on the road; if the driver relies on the plate reader to charge the toll, two-axle vehicles will pay $5.50, threeaxle vehicles $9.50 and five-axle vehicles $13.50.
“We use All Electronic Tolling — tolls
are collected from equipment on an overhead gantry located at the bridge’s west end, near the Riley Road entrance. There is no traditional toll booth and no gates, which allows traffic to flow smoothly,” Laura Weber, communications specialist for United Bridge Partners, said in an email.
Travelers will be able to use the bridge free-ofcharge through Jan. 31, according to the United Bridge Partners website, then tolls will cost $1 for everyone through the month of February. Regular priced tolls will start March 1, it said.
East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland was ready to tell the caravan to “start their engines.”
“As I look down at this long line of cars, I’m reminded that they there’s no ‘I’ in team. History will mark this day,” he said.
State Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, dubbed the new section “The Bridge of Prosperity,” and not just for the city of East Chicago, which will receive 10 cents per toll.
The Region itself will benefit, he said, because of the time savings truckers and commuters will save.
Ross Newell, who owns Newell Roofing in Hammond, couldn’t agree more.
“Time is money,” Newell said. “I have a crew of three men and I have to pay them even when they’re sitting in traffic.
“This will get them where they need to be quicker, plus it’ll likely move the big trucks that have ruined Calumet Avenue, Indianapolis Boulevard and all the other road onto here.”
Tony Santana, of St. John, used to work in East Chicago. The bridge reopening is “a great day” for Northwest Indiana, he said.
“It’s great, thanks to East Chicago and the Cline Avenue Bridge Company for coming together to bring back the best route to Chicago,” Santana said.
“Yes, there’s a cost, but the convenience will be worth it, and it’ll be especially good for people in North Lake County.”