Four Purdue University landscape architecture seniors, on Wednesday, presented their group design to revitalize abandoned elevated rail tracks in downtown Gary.
“Today is a very, very big day,” said Mitch Barloga, active transportation manager for the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission. “This is quite amazing, and I’m very impressed.”
The presentation was the next phase in the Gary ELevated Coalition’s work to convert the city’s elevated railroad in Midtown into a multi-use trail that will be part of the Marquette Greenway, which runs from Chicago to New Buffalo, Michigan. The Purdue students were tasked with designing the trail as their partnership role for Gary ELevated.
Aaron Thompson, associate professor of landscape architecture, told presentation attendees that the group’s work was their final capstone project in their program. The project was also recognized as one of Purdue’s 10 best undergraduate projects, Thompson said.
“Their last year — really, their last semester — has been participating in our community capstone program,” Thompson said. “We try, as best we can, to match our students up with communities that have very specific needs that landscape architects can help them out with. … I think they’ve fallen in love with this community.”
Senior landscape students involved were Grace Ackerman, Grace Caffee, Jennifer Kerr and Odin Johnson. All four students presented on Wednesday.
The students hiked along the future elevated trail on a February visit to Gary.
“This was an instrumental part of the process,” Kerr said, adding that it helped them understand the local vegetation and history of the railroad.
The students encouraged the coalition to embrace the local history, vegetation, and wildlife when constructing the trail. They want to include educational opportunities for children to learn more about the area as well.
During Wednesday’s presentation, Caffee said Gary is “very strategically located” and has “fantastic adjacencies” to Lake Michigan, Marquette Park Beach and the Marquette Greenway.
The trail, once completed, could serve as a link to other Northwest Indiana communities, Caffee said.
In their research, the group found Gary has a high disabled and elderly population, so they could make trail entrances more accessible, including by using ramps. Gary residents also have limited access to vehicles, Caffee said, so the trail would be a transit opportunity as well.
“We also realized that there are a lot of vacant lots along the trail’s corridor,” Caffee said. “That makes a nice opportunity to have a public open space along the trail.”
The entrance to the trail will be “just outside Gary” and near the Indiana Dunes National Park, Ackerman said.
“People are coming through that space already,” Ackerman said. “You might as well utilize that and create somewhere else that people want to visit.”
Johnson also recommended that Gary ELevated members use existing structures within the city, including a residential park at the intersection of Mississippi Street and East 8th Avenue. The site was a surprise visit on their tour, Johnson said, but he was gravitated towards it.
“Coming to this space in February, there was still snow on the ground, but there was a basketball court and an existing playground, and you could still see footprints,” Johnson said. “This was still a well-used site, and we kind of took that as, ‘The community already knows what they want this space to be.’”
Johnson recommends keeping the core of those sites the same but enhancing it, including through adding lights and adding signage. The students also encouraged coalition members to add stations for vehicles and bikes at the park.
Gary ELevated is a partnership between the city of Gary and the NIRPC. The coalition is made up of community stakeholders that meet quarterly, and they help learn about the process, message information to constituents, provide ideas and set up meeting spaces.
The revitalization project is expected to be completed in 2034, and it’s inspired by similar elevated trails in other cities, including Chicago, Milwaukee and New York City.
Barloga anticipates the project will cost between $50-60 million, and each bridge will cost about $2 million to rehabilitate, according to Post-Tribune archives.
NIRPC will help plan the trail, according to Post-Tribune archives. SmithGroup, a Chicago-based architecture fund, will help with consulting, and Barloga previously said he anticipates that the Rail to Trails Conservancy will provide grant funding.
“Gary is in the midst of quite a bit of new growth, and the excitement is happening here,” Barloga said. “We’re trying to get the city to … be a place where people would like to move to and stay. This is the type of project that makes that happen.”
