Mark Bennett: As city studies downtown overpass, a look back at a missed opportunity

The Terre Haute city fathers should’ve listened to Demas Deming more than a century ago.

If so, a study researching a possible downtown railroad overpass or underpass likely wouldn’t be necessary in 2024.

But, alas, such an overpass (or underpass) is indeed needed. And the multiyear process of planning and constructing one has taken its initial steps. On Aug. 1, the Terre Haute City Council approved $100,000 for a feasibility study to determine the best intersection to locate an overpass or underpass across the 10th Street tracks.

Somewhere, Deming is saying, “I told you so.”

In 1897, the local banker and philanthropist urged the city to build a downtown viaduct over the soon-to-be-laid railroad tracks at 10th and Ohio streets. (Viaducts, typically featuring arches or piers, are similar to overpasses.) Back in Deming’s time, his goal for the viaduct was to open Ohio Street eastward, unimpeded by a train crossing.

Deming owned land east of 18th Street on Ohio, according to a 2005 retrospective by former Vigo County historian Mike McCormick and the original June 15, 1897 story in the Terre Haute Express newspaper.

To entice the city to build the viaduct, Deming offered in return to build a huge public library on Ohio Street, where the First Congregational Church now sits. He also promised to establish a vast city park on his east-side land.

A resulting proposal to build a viaduct at 10th and Ohio, funded by two competing railroad companies, unraveled amid disagreements between the firms and the city. The failed agreement was contingent upon the railroads keeping the right to build an unlimited number of additional tracks in the city. As McCormick wrote, “Deming seethed.”

The fizzling of the plan soured Deming on his hometown for years.

If the plan had been implemented and the viaduct got built, the structure may not have lasted the past 127 years. But residents undoubtedly would’ve grown accustomed to traversing Ohio Street without being railroaded and likely would’ve supported any repairs or reconstruction of such a viaduct (or overpass) over time.

Of course, none of that happened. And traffic backups and delays downtown at 10th Street railroad crossings became a maddening tradition for decades as Americans grew increasingly attached to cars and trucks for transportation.

Present-day traffic-count statistics from the Indiana Department of Transportation reflect the busy nature of the Terre Haute streets that cross the 10th Street tracks in the downtown district. Based on yearlong figures, the average daily number of vehicles traveling on the downtown east-west streets between Ninth and 11th streets varies somewhat. For the two one-way streets, that stretch of Ohio Street gets an average of 4,533 trips per day, compared with 1,014 daily trips on Walnut.

The two-way roads encountering the sector from Ninth to 11th have higher counts, according to the INDOT figures relayed by the Terre Haute Metropolitan Planning Organization. Wabash Avenue averages 10,456 trips daily on that stretch, while Poplar Street averages 12,073.

Dozens of trains pass through the 10th Street tracks daily, said Jeremy Weir, transportation planning director for the Terre Haute MPO.

A 20-year railroad corridor study for the city in 2012 concluded that a downtown overpass was needed, in addition to new overpasses near Margaret Avenue and 19th Street (completed in December 2018) and at Eighth Avenue and 13th Street (slated for construction late in 2025, according to Mayor Brandon Sakbun). The current study is to determine the best intersection to locate the downtown overpass (or underpass).

The feasibility study should be completed by June 2025, Sakbun said last week. That sets the city up for an application to the Federal Railroad Elimination Grant in 2025, he explained.

Overpasses don’t happen fast. The study is an early, necessary step.

“Feasibility studies are the first requirement for a project like this,” Sakbun said last Friday. “These projects can take anywhere from 10 to 20 years from start to finish. We need a completed feasibility study to field a competitive application for design and construction grants through state and more often federal agencies.”

Back in 1897, the plan for a downtown viaduct had its advocates. It’s a fascinating saga, especially in 2024 hindsight.

“They are not an unsightly structure, nor is there any valid objection to them,” Sidney B. Davis, attorney for the Evansville & Terre Haute Railroad Co., told the Terre Haute Express 127 years ago. “A tunnel would be equally satisfactory, perhaps. I think a viaduct could be built for $35,000 to $40,000. At one time, the railroad offered to pay half the expense of such a structure, but the city snubbed the proposition. I am of the opinion that the [railroad] would be willing to do its part now, and I am satisfied that the building of a viaduct at Ohio would eventually lead to the building of another [at Poplar Street].” The cost in 2024 dollars would be about $1.5 million.

Yes, there could’ve been ways to avoid trains at both Ohio and Poplar streets.

Still, some favored a grade crossing, rather than a viaduct. Deming made his preference clear.

“I think a viaduct [is] more feasible, cheaper, safer and in every way to be preferred to a grade crossing,” he told the Express.

The city chose grade crossings.

The Southern Indiana Railroad laid the tracks across Wabash Avenue in 1900, McCormick wrote, and passenger trains began rolling over them just weeks later. Ohio Street didn’t open east of the 10th Street tracks until 1901. As for the library, Crawford Fairbanks consented in 1904 to build the Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library on North Seventh Street.

And the park? It happened, of course. In 1921, Deming agreed to sell to the city the land that is now Deming Park. Of the $155,000 proceeds, he gave $100,000 to Rose Polytechnic Institute, and used the remainder to establish the city’s now-historic gem, Ohio Boulevard. He died in 1922 with an estimated $2-million estate, which would equate to $37.5 million today.

And the railroading issue? Well, as Aerosmith once sang, the “train(s) kept a rollin’ all night long” year after year, as Hauteans watch.