Legislation to set up a commission to advocate for better passenger rail service in Indiana looked promising when it passed the Senate in the recent Indiana General Assembly session.
But when Senate Bill 13 stalled in a House committee without a floor vote, some of its supporters felt the state had let them down.
“As far as we can tell, official Indiana is not interested in passenger rail development,” said Hammond resident Steve Coxhead, president of the Indiana Passenger Rail Alliance.
He contended that support from Gov. Eric Holcomb could have gotten Senate Bill 13 moving after the chairman of a House committee refused to give it a hearing.
“Many people in the House did talk to the committee chairman, and he was immovable,” Coxhead said.
A legislator who backed the bill said people who want better passenger rail service in Indiana need to do more to make a good economic argument for their case.
“They’ve never been able to put good market figures together,” Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, said. “You have to do the numbers based on the macro economy.”
Soliday had signed on as one of Senate Bill 13’s co-sponsors in the House after the bill passed the Indiana Senate and went to the House.
But he said he understood why Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, who chairs the House Roads and Transportation Committee, declined to give the bill a hearing.
Pressel reportedly said Indiana has too many commissions already, but Soliday believes Pressel’s reluctance had more to do with the compressed time in the legislature’s short session.
“You don’t get points in heaven for creating studies and commissions,” Soliday said.
He said passenger rail advocates need to find “a champion who’s going to be willing to spend the time to get things done.”
And, he said, they need to “show us the numbers that will stand up to peer review, that this is economic development.”
Coxhead said passenger rail supporters are looking into the possibility of reintroducing the legislation in the next Indiana General Assembly session.
“We want to get publicity out that Indiana is missing out on passenger rail development,” he said.
Coxhead noted that former U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Gary, worked for years for federal and state funding to improve and expand the South Shore Line by arguing that Northwest Indiana needed better commuter service to compete for jobs in the Chicago market, and that Gov. Eric Holcomb became an enthusiastic supporter of the project.
The result: About $1.5 billion in construction projects underway now to build a new rail line from Hammond to Dyer and to improve the existing service’s speed and reliability.
“Visclosky moved heaven and earth to get this going,” Coxhead said.
Fred Lanahan, of Fort Wayne, heads the Northern Indiana Passenger Rail Association, which wants to restore Amtrak service from Chicago to Fort Wayne and, eventually, to Columbus, Ohio.
New federal infrastructure funding is available projects like that, he said.
“It’s critically important that Indiana reach out to the federal Department of Transportation and say, ‘Hey, we want to be a part of this,’ ” Lanahan said.
And, he said, improving freight rail lines for passenger service would help freight service also.
Lanahan noted also that two Indiana state legislators — Rep. Sharon Negele, R-Attica, and Sen. Brian Buchanan, R-Lebanon — are on the eight-state Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission, which advocates for passenger rail improvements across states stretching from North Dakota to Ohio, centered on Chicago.
“There are lots of opportunities,” Lanahan said.
Tim Zorn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
