Construction to reduce congestion and improve safety on the Borman Expressway, without widening the highway, will begin in late 2026 and last two years, the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission’s executive board heard Thursday.
“The sooner the better, in my opinion,” Chesterton Town Council member Jim Ton, a NIRPC board member, said after hearing the presentation.
Toby Randolph, project manager for the company working with the Indiana Department of Transportation on the project, said it will cover 14 miles of Interstate 80/94 – called the Borman Expressway in Indiana — from Illinois 394 to Interstate 65.
Called Flex/Road, the project is expected to include a combination of strategies, such as letting vehicles use the highway’s shoulders when traffic is heavy, limiting traffic entering when the highway is busy, and warning of congestion ahead.
“It’s not new,” Randolph said. “It’s just new to Indiana.”
The work will include installing large message boards over the highway at several locations, restoring the highway’s pavement for five miles east from the Illinois border, improving the shoulder lanes, and reconstructing the highway’s inside shoulders, he said.
A lane will be added where the eastbound Borman begins to merge with southbound I-65, Randolph said, and a new ramp will be built from northbound Broadway to the eastbound Borman.
Maintaining traffic flow on the Borman will include more monitoring, faster response to incidents, and expanding the Hoosier Helper program, he added.
The project’s final design and cost estimate haven’t been settled yet. INDOT received a $127 million federal grant last year for the project, estimated then to cost about $212 million.
INDOT conducted public meetings on the project in 2022, and another one is expected next year.
Lake County Surveyor Bill Emerson and Porter County Council member Andy Vasquez said drainage problems in the Borman also should be addressed.
Randolph said snow or standing water on the highway’s shoulders would prevent them from being used.
Also Thursday, NIRPC Executive Director Ty Warner expressed gratitude to the Indiana General Assembly for approving an increase in NIRPC’s funding from Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties for the first time in 32 years.
“We literally were leaving federal funds on the table that we were not able to access,” he said of the previous funding limitation.
The increase will be phased in over the next five years, beginning with 86 cents per capita in 2025 to $1.50 per capita in 2029.
The three counties’ revenue, which funds NIRPC’s staffing and operations, is expected to increase from $549,033 this year to $1.17 million in 2029, according to the legislature’s estimate.
Tim Zorn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
