The Town of Munster’s application for the $17.1 million RAISE grant for redoing Ridge Road is ready to be signed at Monday’s Council meeting, but the Town Council still has concerns over its language.
Originally written with “strict language” when the town initially applied for the grant, Dustin Quincy, vice president of engineering for Indianapolis-based Infrastructure Engineering Inc., said he wrote an amendment to the application that makes way for a second option of retaining five narrower lanes on Ridge Road and adding a bike lane after an August 14 progress meeting. The new language, Quincy said at an Oct. 2 study session, gives the town “more flexibility” while showing the U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration that the town is adhering to its design standards, he said.
The first plan, however, had “a vast amount of public input,” Councilman Chuck Gardiner, R-3, pointed out, while the current council hasn’t called for public input in the nine months since taking office. Having language in the amendment saying there’s been public input for the new configuration, then, is “not correct,” he said.
“I thought we’ve been talking about this,” Councilman George Shinkan,” R-1, said. “People don’t want to see (Ridge Road) reduced.”
“I think they do want it because the first option is the safer one,” Gardiner said, to which Quincy added that it’s a “no-brainer” that removing lanes makes a roadway safer. For example, drivers who pull up on a school bus are less likely to drive around it if they’re on a three-lane road, Quincy said.
Councilman Jonathan Petersen, R-5, then said he wanted Quincy to remove reference to the three-lane option altogether because the amendment “doesn’t make clear” that the council wants the five-lane option.
“I think clarity is best: We want the five-lane. We were elected because we heard what the residents wanted,” Petersen said.
“Let’s put a line in there that the council campaigned for the five lanes,” Gardiner said jokingly.
“I’m fearful that if we move forward with (two options), the feds can come back and say, ‘This isn’t what we approved; give us back the money,’ and I don’t want to be in that situation,” Petersen said. “The Feds aren’t giving us a pot of money; it’s a rebate.”
“You’re putting me in a strange position. The language is supposed to be flexible,” Quincy said.
To adhere to the grant’s upcoming deadline, the council will vote whether to approve the grant application during the 7 p.m. October 7 meeting at Town Hall.
The town’s original plan — which the Council adopted June 5th, 2021 and for which USDOT awarded the town a $17.1 million RAISE grant in August 2022 that the town will contribute $4 million in tax increment finance money — called for reducing the current five-lane Ridge Road to three lanes and adding space for pedestrians, cyclists and greenery and becoming what planners call a “complete street” — one that’s available for people on foot or wheels, not just cars and trucks, the Post-Tribune previously reported. Instead of two lanes in each direction and a continuous turn lane in the middle, it would have three: one in each direction and a center turn lane.
Trees and rain gardens — green space designed to temporarily store rainwater after storms — would replace some of the area formerly devoted to vehicles, and the rain gardens and trees would help stop water from filling streets and basements after storms, Anderson said. The amount of impervious road surface will be cut by 25%.
There also would be a 10-foot-wide path for pedestrians and cyclists, and places to cross the slimmed-down road safely between intersections. Parking spaces would be added along the roadway for people going to nearby businesses.
The current Town Council, however, campaigned on keeping Ridge Road five lanes, and while doesn’t want to lose $17.1 million, the council “won’t go back on their campaign promise,” the Post-Tribune reported previously.
“We’re going to do everything we can to be in compliance, but do you do something wrong just because you have the money? It’s like people are saying: ‘We are their referendum’,” Council President David Nellans said.
Freelance reporter Tim Zorn contributed.
