Updates, News, and Events for a United NWI

United NWI

NWI’s diversity is celebrated, and we work together as a community across racial, ethnic, political and cultural lines for the mutual benefit of the region.

Spotlight

The majority of NIRPC’s planning activities start on July 1st of each year and with our “New Year” NIRPC would like to share some of the planning activities now underway for a United NWI . In FY2020, the following tasks will be undertaken:

Public Health and Transportation - This task seeks to better understand the linkage between public health and transportation and implement transportation policies and projects that will improve health outcomes in NWI.

Regional Transit Website - NIRPC will work with partner transit operators to develop a website that provides transit information on a single website. Currently, transit information is provided on ten different operator websites. This one-stop source of information was a recommendation from the 2018 Coordinated Transit Plan .

Transformative Investments Strategy - This task seeks to define what transformative investments for our transportation network might be and identify strategies to help pay for such projects. The NWI 2050 Plan identified a lack of resources and strategies, especially for very expensive projects.

Follow this newsletter and NIRPC’s social media for updates on these planning activities and opportunities to participate.

Economy and Place

Environment

Mobility

Coming this summer and early fall, wayfinding signage will be constructed along the all 17 miles of the Erie-Lackawanna Trail (Lake County), and nine miles of the Prairie Duneland Trail (Porter County). The project involves the cooperation of eleven governmental entities in two counties, making the project one of the largest unified ventures in our Region’s history.

For many years, people have enjoyed both of these regional trail systems, providing enormous health and economic benefits. However, since each community was responsible for building their own segment of trail, both systems are without signage tp aid people on what street they are crossing, what community they are in, and what destinations are nearby the trail.

This project will aim to remedy these outstanding issues by providing wayfinding elements including community entrance signs, street signs, map kiosks and mile markers. Each of these elements were previously designed by NIRPC with the cooperation of numerous public officials. The final designs were compiled into the 2016 Unified Wayfinding Guide , and are being implemented for the first time along both of these trail systems. The goal is to keep incorporating these wayfinding elements on all regional trail facilities, providing a unified theme for those living and visiting our Region.

Interesting news:

Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research released the Community Asset Inventory and Rankings (CAIR) Report that assess the quality of life and economic conditions within each Indiana county.

New Brownfield Grant

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded a grant through their Brownfields Program that will improve areas in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago. The grant was awarded to a coalition that included the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC), the Northwest Indiana Forum Foundation, and the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority (RDA).

The $600,000 grant award will be used to conduct environmental site assessments, prepare cleanup plans, and implement community outreach activities. In general, the EPA Brownfields Program aims to allow states, communities, and stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields.

Health Equity Summit

Join Health by Design in changing the conversation about what creates health equity within public health, across government, and in communities. The summit will allow attendees to learn guiding strategic practices; hear case studies from a national expert, Lili Farhang of Human Impact Partners, and organizations doing this work in Indiana and beyond; and consider what actions and next steps are needed to champion transformational change. The Summit will address how we must systematically address power imbalances, racism, and other forms of oppression to reduce disparities and create healthy, vibrant places for all. Learn more and register here.

The recently adopted 2020-2024 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) is the portfolio of Northwestern Indiana's upcoming capital investments and projects to improve our transportation program. The projects are categorized into one of thirteen programs. There are two programs that improve the transportation systems impact on our environment, and one that helps plan for our future: Air Quality and Environment , and the Planning programs, respectively. Below are highlights of each programs' five-year investments throughout Northwestern Indiana.

Air Quality / $4,292,837 / This program provides funding for alternative fuel vehicles and infrastructure, vehicle emission reduction, and air quality public education.
Environment / $1,084,350 / The program provides funding for storm water management, control, and prevention.
Planning / $2,973,161 / This program mostly funds transit planning and oversight, TIP management, and transit-oriented development planning.

Interesting news: