NICTD Focuses on South Shore Line Service in 2024

Indiana South Shore Line

INDIANAPOLIS – Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District is focusing on the projects along its South Shore Line service this year.

The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) is focusing on the South Shore Line service in 2024. This year, it will look at increasing the service once the $650 million Double Track NWI project is complete, according to nwitimes.com. The Double Track project gets it names from adding a second set of tracks to single-track areas between Michigan City and Gary, Indiana. The project includes new bridges and station replacements and upgrades, and it has been ongoing for the last two years, and the expected opening date for full service is in May. Officials for South Shore believe this will increase ridership to and from Chicago. Said ridership experienced an increase last year at 8.5% to 1.5 million riders. However, it still doesn’t match pre-Covid levels. 2019 saw 3.3 million riders.

According to the report, NICTD’s most recent state audit showed revenue from passenger fare at $22.5 million in 2019 with a projection of $17.5 million this year. Railroad officials are currently lobbying state leaders for a boost to its operations. NICTD President Michael Noland told the NICTD Board of Trustees that they’ve “always maintained a healthy cash reserve, because things happen, and so we have been using that cash reserve to offset the difference between revenue and expense the last few years.” Additionally, Noland said NICTD’s planning allows for “the use of capital reserves to subsidize operations through 2025.”

Railroad officials in Indianapolis have discussed with the State legislature and governor’s office the revenue-expense gap “in an effort to gain increased operating support in the state’s next biennial budget, to be produced next year.” Noland said NICTD needs “to do something structurally with our state funding. . . but we’re going to do it in a way that is informed by another year of operations, without busing, with substantial new service.”

Reaching 78% of its pre-pandemic ridership by the end of 2024 is among the railroad’s projections. 97% of the Double Track NWI project is complete, and service between Dune Park and Gary Metro Center stations will resume in April. According to the report, the “start of full revenue service, including the additional trains” will begin in May. The new Michigan City 11^th Street Station is one part of the project that will not be complete at that time. It’s reportedly going to be “part of a major development that will include residential and business components covering a city block.” That particular project is led by Flaherty & Collins and is expected be completed in December.

NICTD President Noland said one of the challenges has been in “working out an agreement with CSX railroad to build an access road under the CSX freight line at Main Street, to provide access to the South shore’s planed parking lot on the west side of the parallel railroads.”

In addition, NICTD is planning the end of the $950 million West Lake Corridor project, which is scheduled for May 2025. This project will extend service from Hammond to the Munster/Dyer border at Main Street. As of reporting, the project is 60% done. This winter, it will replace a major bridge.