The Munster Town Council insists the U.S. Federal Highway Administration is still considering its amendment to a $17.1 million grant application despite an October report that said it wouldn’t consider a five-lane Ridge Road.
Munster resident Margaret Pruzin asked the council at its December 16 meeting the status of the RAISE grant the FHWA awarded the town since she’d heard the agency didn’t accept the grant amendment it submitted. The Council on October 7 sent the FHWA a letter outlining the changes it wants to make to its grant application, declaring that present and future traffic volumes don’t allow for a three-lane roadway, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
The amendment hasn’t been turned down, Council President Dave Nellans, R-4, told Pruzin, at which point she asked where she could see documentation to that effect.
“Our design engineer is working on it,” Interim Town Manager Patricia Abbott said. “We submitted the information, and the (FHWA) said they need to see these road analyses.”
“I couldn’t see the amendment,” Pruzin said.
“It’s not been finalized; the FHWA is waiting for this other analysis,” Abbott said.
In a report dated October 25 that the Post-Tribune obtained, Abell Gelaye, a design policy/geometrics program manager with the FHWA’s Indiana division, reminded the Town that the project’s purpose is “to enhance safety for both vehicles and pedestrians by transforming the corridor into a walkable downtown destination.” He didn’t agree that the town’s plan to keep Ridge Road at five lanes while configuring private drives to be right-in/right out through; using driveway splitter or center medians; and reducing lane size and vehicle speeds, among other things, would meet the grant’s guidelines, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
“Traffic analysis indicates that the three-lane section functions as effectively as the five-lane section,” Gelaye said. “The crash data in the report shows the highest incidence in the area suggesting that the recommendation or analysis did not propose countermeasures to reduce crashes.
Gelaye also noted that the speed study the Town conducted showed 60% of vehicles traveling that section of Ridge exceed the posted speed limit of 35 mph, with 2% exceeding 55 mph, but it didn’t recommend countermeasures for higher speeders, nor did it update the crash report and safety analysis of the last four years.
Additionally, if shrinking the width of current lanes to 10 feet to allow for a bike or travel lane, for example, would be fine for cars, it wouldn’t be for trucks and busses, which need a minimum of 11 feet, according to current standards, Gelaye wrote.
“Therefore, the recommendation in the PE Assessment report for a five-lane section does not address the grant application award,” he wrote, adding that further justification of the safety benefits may be needed. “We believe the project satisfies the purpose and needs as agreed to by a full range of stakeholders. … Given the high competitiveness of this grant, it is essential that all terms and conditions are strictly followed.”
Whether Gelaye’s report indicates that Munster will have to give up the $17.1 million grant remains unclear; neither Gelaye nor Abbott returned emails from the Post-Tribune. More recently, Nellans didn’t respond to a Post-Tribune request asking what if anything,q the town’s doing in response to Gelaye’s report and whether it’s going to give the $17.1 million back since he and Councilmen George Shinkan, R-1, Joe Hofferth, R-2 and Jonathan Petersen, R-5 “won’t go back on their campaign promise” of keeping Ridge Road five lanes.
The council also voted to extend the town’s agreement with Abbott to serve as interim Town Manager for another six months. When Councilman Chuck Gardiner, R-4, asked if the town had reached out to its consultant Baker Tilly, Abbott said she had and that Baker Tilly is updating the job description and waiting to repost the want ad until after the holidays.
“This has been going on for almost a year,” Gardiner said.
In other business, the council voted unanimously to appoint Shinkan and Hofferth to serve as both its 2025 Town Council and Redevelopment Commission President and Vice President, respectively. The remaining councilmen will continue to serve on Redevelopment as well.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
