‘This has been an amazing shot in the arm for us’
Marquette Greenway gets $18M grant from US Department of Transportation
An ambitious project to complete the Marquette Greenway, a 60-mile bike and pedestrian trail across Northwest Indiana, has received a major boost with a nearly $18 million federal grant.
The U.S. Department of Transportation grant, awarded to the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, supplies nearly 80% of the funding needed to finish building the trail.
So far, 34 miles of the trail have been built or funded. NIRPC sought federal funds to complete the remaining 26 miles.
Mitch Barloga, the NIRPC active transportation planner who put together the grant application, was “over the moon” with the news.
“I firmly believe that in five or six years we’ll see the whole thing completed,” he said. “This has been an amazing shot in the arm for us. It will bring energy and focus to get the other parts done.”
NIRPC applied for a $23,119,971 grant and was awarded $17,799,282.
The Marquette Greenway was first proposed in 2003 by former U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Gary, as part of his vision to reclaim Northwest Indiana’s Lake Michigan shoreline, originally claimed by industry, for public use.
The Marquette Greenway grant award was announced Tuesday by Visclosky’s successor, U.S. Rep Frank Mrvan, D-Highland.
“We stand on the shoulders of our predecessors,” Mrvan said in a news release, “and I am grateful for all of the advocacy and work that generated this award ….
“I look forward to the final completion of this trail, which will undoubtedly continue to attract new people and businesses to our regional economy and improve the livelihood of all residents.”
“The Marquette Greenway is an absolutely transformative project for Northwest Indiana,” NIRPC Executive Director Ty Warner added in the news release.
Barloga said NIRPC sought a federal grant for the Marquette Greenway three times previously.
He had been more optimistic this time, with the Department of Transportation headed by former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Completed Marquette Greenway trail segments are in Hammond, Whiting, East Chicago, Gary, Indiana Dunes National Park, Portage, Burns Harbor, Porter County and Michigan City. Hammond’s 5.85 miles are the most completed so far. Whiting, with 1.96 miles, is the first community that has completed its entire trail segment.
Remaining segments are in Chicago, Gary, Ogden Dunes, Portage, Burns Harbor, Porter County and Michigan City.
The longest is 6.1 miles in the Indiana Dunes National Park in Gary and Portage. Others call for building several bridges and re-purposing a couple of old ones, including a former South Shore Line bridge over the Indiana Toll Road in Gary.
The first project likely to get off the drawing board,
Barloga said, could be a rebuilt Calumet Trail in Porter County. The 9-mile Calumet Trail’s original slag surface, built in 1972 from Dune Acres to Michigan City’s western border, has deteriorated. Porter County officials have been working to build a new, paved trail and the federal funding
could pay for 4.4 miles in the Indiana Dunes National Park and Beverly Shore.
The entire Marquette Greenway will be asphaltpaved with completed, Barloga said.