A local planning official told a key transportation committee Tuesday that INDOT included $121 million for Cline Avenue in its most recent transportation improvement plan, but a state official said it is too early to say what kind of funding will be put into the project.
Gary Evers, a Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission planner, told the group's transportation policy committee he has learned the money was in a plan the committee was asked to approve.
That plan, called a transportation improvement plan, or TIP, included about 200 Indiana Department of Transportation road projects, with a total cost of more than $200 million for Northwest Indiana.
However, in the printed version Evers handed out, the Cline Avenue funding does not appear.
Wil Wingfield, an INDOT spokesman, on Tuesday said the money identified for the Cline Avenue project is old information based on the need to replace the superstructure of the bridge before it was found to be fatally weakened.
Specific funding for any project to replace Cline Avenue will not be identified until INDOT defines a solution for replacing the closed bridge, Wingfield said.
"We are in the process of reviewing the input we have received, and in the next few months we will announce different phases of the long-term traffic solutions for Cline Avenue," Wingfield said.
Evers said the money set aside includes $80 million, originally in the transportation improvement plan for replacing the Cline Avenue bridge superstructure before the bridge was closed, and another $41 million for the Cline Avenue ramps at Riley Road.
In January, INDOT Chief of Staff Bob Zier told NIRPC's transportation policy committee some $90 million set aside for the earlier Cline Avenue bridge superstructure would be put toward any replacement, whether it be a bridge or another road.
The money for replacing the superstructure -- the portion of the bridge above the upright piers that support it -- originally was put in INDOT's plan because officials knew the structure was having problems. When the bridge temporarily was closed Nov. 13 and then condemned at the end of December, local leaders began to fear the money for the previous Cline Avenue project might be absorbed back into INDOT's budget.
On Tuesday, the NIRPC committee heard a presentation on Cline Avenue by Christopher Murphy, a consultant representing the mayors of East Chicago, Whiting, Gary and Hammond.
Murphy said replacing the bridge as quickly as possible is the first priority of the mayors and the Cline Avenue Coalition. The coalition is composed of the mayors, leading businesses and community leaders.
The coalition also is calling for reconfiguring the interchange leading to Jeorse Park and Ameristar Casino so it also leads to Guthrie Street and Broadway Street on the south side of Cline Avenue. And it recommends a pedestrian/bicycle bridge spanning Cline Avenue and connecting the North Harbor neighborhood with the lakefront.
The coalition also is asking INDOT to consider a major reconfiguration of the Exit 10 ramps on the Indiana Toll Road south of the Gary airport.
