NIRPC 2050 Draft Plan

With re-election not paramount, officials look ahead 30 years

Contributed By:The 411 News

State and federal highways are part of the fabric of northwest Indiana. And the tag ‘crossroads of America’ fits it well. Northwest Indiana also wears other tags. One that stands out is ‘rust belt,’ pointing to a region that was once a hub for heavy manufacturing but now has lost many of those industries and with it, jobs; leaving a landscape littered with abandoned factories.

April’s release of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission’s 2050 Draft Plan looks at that fabric in detail. The plan is built on what locally elected government officials from Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties see as the region’s concerns and challenges over the next 30 years.

Since the creation of NIRPC in 1965, long-range planning and forecasting have been essential to its roles in qualifying the region to receive billions of dollars in federal grants and become a clearinghouse for education and information. The 2050 Draft Plan’s cornerstone is the 2040 Plan, NIRPC’s first 30-year plan, completed in 2011 and creates a vision for the region’s environment, economic development, land use, and transportation.

Reducing traffic accidents and traffic fatalities on Interstates 65, 80/94 and the Indiana Toll Road are built into an action plan for transportation safety.

The plan looks at the development, use and demand for land in the 3 counties. It discusses action plans for renewing older lakefront communities and reversing trends of population loss. Movement into the southern fringes of urban areas is threatening green spaces and farmlands.

In its “Plan for an E-Commerce Landscape,” implications for the region’s property tax receipts, employment, education, and infrastructure are discussed.

“E-commerce has doubled in the last two years and tripled over the last decade. Online shopping continues to drive up demand for small package home delivery, which may soon substitute for household shopping. Urban freight delivery growth expects to grow 40% by 2050, and smart logistics infrastructure needs to be in place to mitigate congestion.

“Empty big-box stores and storefronts have gone dark in the last decade, changing land development and demand, and curtailing property tax receipts crucial to support local governments and schools.

“E-commerce will also impact employment, where job training should be made available to accommodate advances in technology. The region’s workforce will have to prepare for this shift, and needs to comprehend the broad range of e-commerce impacts so as to benefit from its influence on our future.”

These discussions and more can be viewed in a condensed version of the plan on the NIRPC website that is attractive, user friendly, and searchable.

To view, go to https://www.nirpc.org/2040-plan/transportation/2050-plan/ and scroll down to “To access the draft Plan in storybook format, please click: Draft NWI 2050 Plan Storybook”

Story Posted:05/01/2019