http://www.post-trib.com/cgi-bin/pto-story/news/z1/05-27-04_z1_news_13.html
Public trail a public nuisance to residents
May 27, 2004
By Scheffie Sarver / Post-Tribune staff writer
PORTER — Among the crowd crammed into the Porter Town Hall to voice
consternation over a new bike trail proposal was 81-year-old Robert
Bishop.
He and his wife Rita were worried about their driveway.
The new bike trail, which snakes through the residential downtown area,
would cut across his driveway.
He was worried about hitting a trail biker or walker or child when he
backed out of his driveway.
Also, where would his wife’s pinochle club park?
“I’m 80 years old,” Bishop told the town’s redevelopment commission. “I
gotta live with this?”
Porter has spent six years trying to decide how its portion of the
trail
will connect the Prairie Duneland Trail, which runs through Chesterton
and Portage, to the northerly Calumet Trail.
The commission decided, with the help of engineering firm Duneland
Group, that running the bike trail along Indiana Avenue was the best
route through downtown.
Of chief concern to residents was the proximity of the bike path to
homes, in places, the town’s right-of-way cuts within 30 feet of front
doors.
Hence, some residents didn’t agree with the commission’s assessment.
“Scrap it,” called out resident Jerry Groff. “You’re spending our
money.
It is a solution.”
Town Council member Bill Sexton, who also serves on the redevelopment
commission, said the town’s course was set.
The $2.4 million in grants to build the trail are specific in their
guidelines, Sexton said.
Give the money back and its unlikely the town would see any more grant
money, he said.
Bill Donley, a former Town Council member who lives on Indiana Street,
was part of the council that applied for the bike trail grant.
He, too, protested the proposed trail route.
“I don’t think it was the wish of the first Town Council to have it go
through the downtown,” Donley said.
“Why are you zig-zagging through residential?” Groff said. “If you want
to hold costs down, why don’t you do this in a straight line?”
“We can barely keep our libraries open and we’re putting a bike trail
in
that nobody wants,” resident Gary Cutter said.
But others at the meeting expressed support for the bike trail.
“The type of people we’re talking about here are not riding Harleys,
folks. They’re not riding at 100 mph,” said Rory Robinson, Indiana
projects manager for the National Park Service.
“Porter is in an extremely difficult situation,” said Mitch Barloga,
transportation planner for NIRPC.
“Many communities aren’t in the situations with the expressways and
railroads,” he said. “This is the best design for the route.
“If it goes back to INDOT, there’s going to be quite a bit of
scrutiny,”
Barloga said.
Indiana Avenue is the route, Sexton said.
“We have to get the engineering done,” he said. “I have empathy for
everyone and what was said.”
“No matter where we go, we’re going to have the same reaction from the
residents,” Sexton said.
Reporter Scheffie Sarver
can be reached at 477-6019
or [email protected].