The City of Hammond has canceled a proposed pedestrian bridge in its Hessville neighborhood after the railroad that said it would cover a grant match changed its mind.
Progress on the design of the pedestrian bridge is halted immediately, Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. said in a release Thursday. The scuttling of this project does not impact the construction of the Governor’s Parkway bridge, however, which is “fully funded and awaiting construction.”
“With reduced gaming revenue and the eventual effect of SEA 1 resulting in an expected significant revenue shortfall, we simply don’t have the funds available to pay for the Grand Avenue pedestrian bridge,” McDermott said in the release. “Governors Parkway remains a viable alternative for crossing the line in Hessville.”
The bridge was conceived to solve the problem of kids hopping over stopped trains while trying to get to school, as reported by investigative news outlet ProPublica in 2023. The railroad, Atlanta-based Norfolk Southern, said it would fund the project “100%” and encouraged the city to apply for a Railroad Crossing Elimination grant, McDermott said. The railroad then agreed to pay for the bridge at Grand Avenue’s design.
The city received $7.7 million in RCE money, the release said, of which it then would need to come up with a $2.6 million match that it assumed Norfolk Southern would cover. Norfolk Southern, however, has declined to do so.
“In 2023, I received a call from then CEO of Norfolk Southern, Alan Shaw, offering his total and complete financial support for a new pedestrian bridge,” McDermott said in the release. “Norfolk Southern is not willing to pay for the local match and that’s their prerogative. The City of Hammond, however, has different pressing priorities and does not believe spending nearly $3 million of city dollars on this project is in the best interest of the city.
“Not using city dollars for the pedestrian bridge was the only way to get this built. Without 100% funding, we cannot continue with this project.”
Opponents of the bridge were thrilled to hear that it’s now a nonstarter, in part because the first design renderings would’ve seen two houses taken out to accommodate it, said Terry Steagall, a Highland resident who works with Save Briar East Woods group.
“I know that the Federal Highway Administration still has 400 comments to go through about it, and that’s not supposed to be done until April now,” Steagall said Thursday. “The best solution would’ve been to have a bridge just over Grand Avenue, but the railroad not doing what it said it would just further goes to show that billionaire companies are not good neighbors.”
Ken Rosek, a Hessville resident who heads up Save Briar East, pointed out that another bridge, the Governors Parkway Bridge that McDermott says is still going to be built and will solve the railroad safety issue. His group, however, showed that Governors Parkway Bridge would destroy the woods and dune and swale in the area while not solving the public safety issue.
“The public safety issue was a ruse to get a bridge through the woods and have the feds and state pay for it. Then, eventually, they would develop it,” Rosek said. “That was in the INDOT Grant Application. Then all hell broke loose when the mayor finally admitted the bridge did not solve the public safety issue. We showed everyone that the Governors Bridge was too far away from Grand to solve the problem because it meant an up to two-mile walk for kids to get to the other side of the tracks.
“When they finally showed a rendering of the design, everyone in town could see it the mayor’s claims were false. That was when they came up with the pedestrian bridge and two bridges within half a mile of each other.”
Following that ProPublica article, representatives from Norfolk Southern, Indiana Harbor Belt, Hammond, the Federal Railroad Administration and the School City of Hammond met to discuss problems with the railroad’s protocol of stopping trains in Hessville, the city’s release said. Eventually, Norfolk Southern enacted a Bulletin keeping stopped trains out of Hessville unless there was an operational problem or mechanical defect that prevented trains from continuing into Chicago.
Additionally, if trains were to be stopped for more than 40 minutes, the railroad promised to de-couple trains at Grand to allow pedestrians and motor vehicles to move freely at Grand Avenue, the release said.
“For now. We have to hope that the railroad complies with the Bulletin, or we will once again engage the FRA to put pressure on the railroad to comply with these requirements in an effort to reduce stopped trains,” City of Hammond Engineer Dean Button said in the release.
Governors Parkway Bridge is scheduled to be bid by INDOT in July 2027 with a completion date of Fall 2028, according to the release.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
