Latest news with #EddieMelton
Chicago Tribune
21 hours ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
South Shore Line fares increasing July 1 in first jump since 2018
Fares for South Shore Line riders will increase an average of 10% on July 1 after a 4-1 vote by the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District board. Gary Mayor Eddie Melton voted no Wednesday, explaining he had more questions about it before he could support it. General Manager and President Michael Noland said the fare increase comes after the railroad has depleted its savings following the COVID-19 pandemic. 'We have not had a fare increase on this RR since 2018,' he said. Planned increases were skipped when the pandemic caused ridership to plummet. As the railroad went to the Statehouse looking for additional funding, Noland said, state officials asked, 'What are you doing with respect to self-help?' The railroad has been conservative with its operating expenses and partnered with labor unions to find ways to reduce expenses and turn that into wages, he said. Still, a fare increase was needed. Noland said the fare increase will bring in about $1.25 million to $1.5 million in additional revenue annually. The fare increase is a big jump, at an average of 10%, but it's been a long time coming. The consumer price increase has gone up 'something like 35%' since 2018, he said. Future fare increases are likely, perhaps 5% every other year beginning July 1, 2027, if inflation is around 2.5% per year, he said. The railroad held five public hearings on the fare increases in April and May and solicited comments in writing and by email as well. 'We received feedback. No one ever raises their hand and says please, please, please raise our fares,' Noland said. The hearings in Porter, LaPorte and St. Joseph counties didn't draw any attendees, Director of Strategic Planning and Grants Kelly Wenger said. 'We did not have a tremendous opposition to it,' Noland said. In implementing the fare increase, the railroad is eliminating its buy-one-get-one-free promotion for monthly tickets. 'We heavily discount our monthly tickets,' which have historically been the railroad's bread and butter, Noland said. 'They're still important riders to us,' but ridership trends are changing. The pandemic taught companies that employees working at home could still be productive. Fewer people working in an office five days a week means fewer riders each day. Now a lot of workers are in the office just two or three days a week, Noland said. They're not necessarily working 9 to 5 in the office, either. Some just need to be there in time for a 9:30 a.m. staff meeting and can leave earlier, affecting rush hour demand for trains. 'The monthly ticket doesn't make sense to them. They're not getting the value out of it,' Noland said. Instead, they might opt for a 10-ride or 25-ride ticket. With the new fare structure, a 10-ride ticket is discounted 10% over the single-ride rate. It previously was discounted 5%. A 25-ride ticket now will be discounted 20%, rather than 10%. The monthly ticket price is going up 10%. 'We're going to keep it. We're not going to get rid of it,' Noland said. It will be up to riders to decide which ticket best serves their needs. The railroad's overall ticket sales have jumped 32.4% for the first four months of this year, compared to the same period last year. One-way tickets are up 33.2%, and monthly tickets are up just 8%, the lowest increase of any type of ticket. 25-ride ticket sales are up 11.6% and 10-ride tickets are up 11.7%. The railroad offers reduced-price fares for senior citizens, active duty military, children under 13 and riders with disabilities. In addition, up to three children 13 and under can ride free when accompanied by a parent on weekend, holiday and off-peak weekday trains. Wenger, whose many duties include compliance officer for Title 6, which affects low-income and minority communities, said they're not adversely affected by the fare increase, based on 2024 ridership data. Hudson Lake, the one community showing a disparate impact for the new fare structure, was based on insufficient response for that community. Only one person responded to the survey. 'Hudson Lake on a good day has four riders,' Noland said. The last passenger count was three, Wenger said. 'We must have lost someone somewhere along the way.' On-time performance has improved dramatically in the past year even as more trains are operating. Weekly trains reporting on-time performance increased 142% and trains arriving within 10 minutes of scheduled arrival time are up 85%. Noland, looking at a chart on the performance increase, remarked, 'I wish my stock portfolio looked like that.' The board discussed potential impacts on ridership from external events. If the state decided to turn the Borman Expressway into a toll road, that 'likely would drive, from an economic standpoint, ridership to the South Shore Line,' Noland said. 'That shifts their mentality: Maybe you know what, I'm going to take the train,' he said. When the Dan Ryan Expressway was under construction, ridership hit an all-time high. Board chair Lyndsay Quist, who heads the Indiana Department of Transportation, said her agency did some preliminary work when the General Assembly talked this past session about tolling on the state's expressways but hasn't submitted a formal request to the federal government yet.
CBS News
3 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
How will U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel partnership affect economy, air quality in Gary, Indiana?
On Sunday, the CBS News Chicago Investigators told you about the significant industrial pollution in Northwest Indiana and the health impact on the people living in Gary. Now, the federal government is working out a deal for a Japanese company to invest in U.S. Steel. Gary Mayor Eddie Melton said Nippon Steel plans to pump $1 billion in the Gary Works U.S. Steel facility — the largest steel plant in the country. But critics question whether this investment improve air quality, and whether the investment in the facility translate into an investment in Gary's economy. "I think we're still early in terms of specific commitments, or what they're willing to do," said Melton. The mayor said the details on what the investment by Nippon Steel would involve are not yet clear, but he knows what he wants for his community. "Hopefully, Nippon will make the investments to make the process cleaner; to reduce those emissions as much as they can," said Melton. The monthslong investigation CBS News Chicago aired on Sunday found the plant that would get the money released more pollutants than any other steel or iron mill tracked by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency across the country. "The story was great. I think it covered a lot of legacy issues that people have been voicing on a local level. And it's starting to put it on a more regional and national level of the health concerns of our community." Beryl Fitzpatrick lives near the steel mill. She is a lifelong Gary resident whose doctor said is dealing with cancer likely tied to environmental pollution. The cancer has affected her speech. "I had to learn phonics," she said. "I had to learn words and sounds." Fitzpatrick is fighting for cleaner air in Gary. "There are technologies out there that allow a cleaner steelmaking process," said Mayor Melton. As mayor, another major concern for Melton is the city's economy and how it can benefit from the Nippon Steel investment. Right now, how the money would impact jobs is unclear. "We know that they're a major contributor in that way," Melton said. "But we also know that that level of investment — there should be a direct impact economically to the community as well." Meanwhile, there is something else Mayor Melton wants as Gary Works could get the massive influx of cash. He wants U.S. Steel to start paying its fair share of taxes. "A couple of decades ago, legislation was passed that allowed them to self-assess their real and personal property taxes," he said. The result of that legislation has been that for decades, U.S. Steel has had a special deal — basically choosing what it owes in taxes. "It has not paid its fair share," said Fitzpatrick. "The powers that be would have taken my house if I hadn't paid my fair share." CBS News Chicago brought questions to both U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel. There had been no response as of Thursday afternoon.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Gary teams up with Notre Dame in new push to revive downtown
The Brief Gary and Notre Dame have teamed up on a downtown revitalization plan focused on walkability, public spaces, and preserving historic buildings. The effort includes community input and the return of a preservation board to guide what stays and what goes. Zoning updates and demolition are underway, backed by funding from the state and Hard Rock Casino, with no final timeline yet. GARY, Ind. - Gary has heard promises of revitalization before — and has often been left waiting. But this time, there's real money behind it and real momentum. What we know The city has partnered with the University of Notre Dame to reimagine its downtown. Students and faculty from the university's School of Architecture spent a year working on the plan, holding public meetings and design workshops to shape the vision. The goal: a walkable downtown filled with shops, public art and community gathering spaces. A key step was reinstating the city's historic preservation board to determine which buildings should be saved and which should be demolished. Mayor Eddie Melton said this idea will only work if the people of Gary keep showing up and staying involved. "This plan is for us as a community. It belongs to all of us, every single one of us in the city. This plan is going to help residents, entrepreneurs, churches, faith leaders, cultural leaders and developers. And it gives us a shared road map to move forward together," Melton said. What's next Next up: updating zoning codes to allow new construction. There's no final timeline yet, but the project has secured funding from the state and Hard Rock Casino. Demolition is already underway. For more details on the 10-year plan, click here.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
From blight to beautiful: Gary releases plan to revitalize downtown
GARY, Ind. (WGN) — Once a bustling Midwest steal town, officials in Gary, Ind., are promising to make a comeback and redevelop the city to reverse the trend of population decline, abandoned buildings and blight that is too much a part of its 2025 landscape. Leaders in the Northwest Indiana city of fewer than 70,000 teamed up with the University of Notre Dame to create a master plan of a vibrant, attractive and walkable downtown district. 'This plan builds on our administration's long standing to build community investment and shape a long term commitment to downtown for the next generation,' Gary Mayor Eddie Melton told WGN on Tuesday. The vision, outlined in a report released Tuesday, is the culmination of a partnership made last year with the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture's Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative. The partnership included a series of community listening sessions and a weeklong public urban planning session. Gary, Indiana secures project win for Lake County Convention Center A major part of the process was reestablishing a historic preservation board to identify the most important structures to keep in the city while demolishing and clearing some properties that have been in decline for decades. 'There were things in the drawing that didn't resonate, and people said, 'No you didn't get that right,' so the next day we cleaned it up and then said, 'Did we get this right?' And then we drew again,' explained Marianne Cusato, the director of the Notre Dame program. Gary's Broadway corridor will be the cornerstone of the urban renewal, with the goal to make it a bustling mixed-use district with shops, art galleries and entertainment venues catering to residents and visitors alike. The next step is to adjust current zoning codes to align with the the 10-year plan. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
University of Notre Dame finishes blueprint for downtown Gary with preservation plans, zoning changes
The city of Gary now has a master plan for its downtown, so the time is now for developers to commit to its new vision. Mayor Eddie Melton, along with city dignitaries and representatives from the University of Notre Dame's Housing & Community Regeneration Initiative, announced Tuesday morning that the school has finished the plan it started last August. Now, he and Redevelopment Director Christopher Harris are asking the city's largest stakeholders – the residents who contributed ideas to the plan – to advocate to everyone they know the benefits of the new plan. The city has all the fundamentals any business would covet, said Jackie Shropshire, senior vice president of industrial for Chicago-based commercial real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle. And the timing to get into Gary couldn't be better. 'Post-pandemic, people are looking for walkable cities,' Shropshire, a Gary native, said, adding that pressure in Chicago's housing market gives Gary a competitive edge. 'Gary has regional integration as well; the South Shore Line is something companies desire.' Marianne Cusato, Housing & Community Regeneration Initiative Director for Notre Dame and lead for the Gary plan, said she noticed a master plan when she arrived at City Hall for her first meeting with the administration. When she asked what it was, someone told her it was a master plan from 15 years ago. What propels this plan ahead of the myriad other plans the city has commissioned is the community involvement, she said. At least 100 people came out to the first charette, or stakeholder meeting, back in August to make their thoughts known. 'We pinned up all the input after that first night, and when we came back with our first draft, we asked, 'Did we understand what we heard correctly?' because we know there's no reason for the public to trust us,' Cusato said. 'People said we didn't get it right, so we went back and kept going over it until we got it right.' What the city has now is a holistic blueprint that takes into account preserving the buildings that can be preserved, changing zoning codes immediately in the downtown area to get the momentum started and planning new construction on both sides of Broadway to 'heal' the metaphorical wounds that blight has brought to Gary. '(Planners) currently only destroy cities and build out to the suburbs; we're reinventing the culture of the city,' Cusato said. 'Gary has a much greater platform, but its issues are no different than those of Kalamazoo or Elkhart,' where Notre Dame is also working. For its part, the city also has been working on setting up a different atmosphere for the downtown, including working with the Indiana Department of Transportation to steer truck traffic off 4th and 5th Avenues, Melton said. Whether that will remain something the city can keep doing will depend on whether the state starts turning all its roads into toll roads, the mayor conceded, but for now, it's an important piece of the project. The city will also start accepting Requests for Information on the redevelopment of the Genesis Center as well as the 500 block of Broadway and 120 to 138 E. 5th Avenue corridor, Harris added. 'We're being intentional about (the Genesis Center), so the RFIs will tell us how do we partner (with a developer), do we refurbish it and who has the resources to do anything,' Harris said. There is also a set of Notre Dame-provided zoning codes for the immediate downtown area that the Gary Plan Commission has already approved unanimously, Harris said; they're included in the new master plan that the Gary Common Council is anticipated to take up by the end of July. George Rogge, who lives in Gary's Miller section and sits on the city's Redevelopment Commission, has seen just about all the plans for reinvigorating the city, but he's never been hopeful. He is now. 'The city's been talking about this for the last 50 years. I remember talking about it under Hatcher, and then again under Mayor Thomas Barnes,' he said. 'But sitting in that first meeting, there were 24 to 30 young people (on the Notre Dame team), and they were focused on all of this. We've never had that. 'I never thought I'd be pleased about a master plan, but I am.' Those interested in reading the final plan can log on to
