The City of Fishers is moving full speed ahead with plans to convert the Nickel Plate rail line into a trail. You may recall about two years ago, when the announcement was made about the plans for the trail, there were county commissioners on hand along with Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear.
A story on the front page of the Indianapolis Business Journal December 21st edition, written by North of 96th reporter Samm Quinn, says Noblesville leaders are not anxious to create the section of the trail in the Hamilton County Seat.
Current Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear appears not be inclined to move forward with the trail during 2019, his final year in office. Reporter Quinn spoke with the known Noblesville mayoral candidates and no one talked about the trail as a priority.
Meanwhile, the federal Surface Transportation Board has essentially granted Novblesville, Fishers and Indianapolis the go-ahead to rail bank the corridor within the borders of their respective municipalities, which allows the cities to move forward with the trail, in a ruling announced Friday. The “Save the Nickel Plate” organization, which has pushed for keeping the rail line intact, either just as a rail line or a combined rail & trail, asserted the federal ruling was “great news” on their Facebook page saying the board “clearly spelled out how to return the rail to active service.”
Save The Nickel Plate would need to change the leadership in city government for that return of rail service to happen. Logan Day, a spokesman for the group, recently stepped down from his Save the Nickel Plate post to explore a run for Mayor of Fishers in the 2019 city election.
Save the Nickel Plate has also filed lawsuits against Fishers and made an administrative challenge to the city’s procedures issuing bonds to pay for the first phase of the trail, which will trigger a property tax rate increase. So far, none of these challenges have been successful, but some are still pending.
In a statement released Friday after the federal board’s action, Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness said this ruling “reaffirms the city’s right by law to move forward with the trail and we plan to do so imminently.”
It would now appear the city plans to aggressively move forward with the Nickel Plate Trail, and Save the Nickel Plate plans to be just as aggressive in fighting the trail conversion in every possible arena provided by law. Let’s wait and see how this develops.
You can read Samm Quinn’s story at this link. (NOTE: If you are not a subscriber of the Indianapolis Business Journal, you are limited in the number of stories you may access each month)