Mayor Thomas M. McDermott, Jr. and the City of Hammond are proud to announce the grand opening of our new Erie-Lackawanna pedestrian bridge over Calumet Avenue and Conkey Street scheduled for Tuesday, September 10, 2019 at 3:00pm. The five-span, 600-foot-long multi-use bridge will be completed at a cost of $3.3M, with $2.0M coming from Federal Transportation Enhancement funding by the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC). The bridge connecting the Erie-Lackawanna Trail through Hammond greatly improves the crossing at highly-traveled US41/Calumet Avenue.
The new bridge is the fifth pedestrian roadway overpass, and the seventh multi-use trail structure completed by the City since 2011. Hammond has over 22.5 miles of dedicated multi-use trails including the Marquette Greenway, Erie-Lackawanna, Wolf Lake, Monon and Little Calumet River trails.
“I’m thrilled at the look, style and impact this bridge has on our Hammond Trail network,” said Mayor McDermott. “The team of designer, engineers and contractors did an outstanding job getting this project completed. They delivered.”
Mayor McDermott commends the design team of Beam, Longest and Neff in cooperation with SEH of Indiana, LLC and the contractor, ICC Group, of Elburn, Illinois for completing the project on-time and on-budget.
“Quality of life is as important to me as I feel it is for our residents, which is why Hammond seeks to lead the region in trail and park improvements,” commented Mayor McDermott. “Hammond continues with significant upgrades to Hessville and Martin Luther King Parks. We get to leave this legacy of active recreation to our children and, for that, I am ecstatic.”
City Engineer, Dean Button stated, “Rarely are project of this magnitude completed this smoothly. There were an astoundingly low number of conflicts and change orders on this project, and I credit that to the design team, project engineer and the contractor for their continued cooperation throughout the entire project. Our partners at INDOT and NIRPC are invited to celebrate with us and our community in opening our new bridge.”