Mayor Thomas M. McDermott, Jr. was named Outstanding Public Official by the Indiana Greenways Foundation. Karen Bohn, President of the Foundation presented the award at a luncheon on Tuesday, February 24th in Indianapolis for aggressively working to transform the City of Hammond into a bicycle and pedestrian destination.
In the past year, the City of Hammond has added several new bike bridges to their trail system. A 90 foot span bridge and two 600 foot ADA compliant approaches were added along the Monon Trail at 165th Street next to Lyman. Further along the trail, tying in with Munster, a 200 foot span bridge crosses the Little Calumet River. The Erie Lackawanna Trail over Columbia Avenue and 167th Street added two bridges spanning over 270 feet long with two 600 foot ADA compliant approaches.
A bike trail bridge over Indianapolis Boulevard provides easy access for residents of Hammond and Whiting linking our project to Whiting’s beautiful lakefront improvements. Completed last year was the 1,000 foot bridge crossing Wolf Lake linking it up to the bike trail along Wolf Lake creating a five mile loop around the lake, and will eventually tie in to Chicago’s trail system.
“These improvements allow our bike enthusiasts, joggers, walkers and disabled residents to travel throughout our city to adjoining communities safely and without any obstructions to traffic flow on our streets”, stated Mayor McDermott.
In 2014, the City of Hammond was honored with Outstanding Local Government from the foundation.