Next stop: Munster/Dyer

As promised in my Monon Corridor special, we will be reviewing Munster/Dyer station this week. Munster/Dyer is the terminus of the brand new Monon Corridor, the newest branch line of the South Shore Line. You can read more about the corridor as well as my experience at the inauguration of it in my special post released last week, but today will be all about the new terminus station.

Munster/Dyer is located on the border of, believe it or not, Munster and Dyer, Indiana. While the majority of the station is located in Munster, Indiana, taking the pedestrian bridge over Main St will take you into Dyer. Munster/Dyer is served roughly every 45 minutes during rush hour, and every hour during off-peak and weekends. Off peak and weekend service will be operated by shuttle trains between Munster/Dyer and Hammond Gateway station. In order to continue westbound to Chicago, passengers must transfer at Hammond Gateway. Riders can purchase a singular ticket between Millennium Station and Munster/Dyer, setting you back $8.25 for a One-Way trip.

amenities

The station is also equipped with outdoor seating and a secondary waiting area with more seating and ticket machines. One thing to note is that a few of the ticket machines only dispense monthly passes and do not dispense one way tickets. I’m unsure if this is intended or not, and if it isn’t then I hope it gets fixed in the near future.

Lastly, bike parking and ramps are available all along the station, making the entire station accessible. The aforementioned pedestrian bridge is available to get to the parking lot on the other side of Main St, and an additional pedestrian underpass is available to get across the tracks and to the much bigger parking lots on the other side of them.

Surroundings

If you haven’t gathered already, this station mainly serves as a park and ride for Dyer and the surrounding towns of northwest Indiana. Much of this station’s immediate surroundings are composed of parking lots and low density single family housing. In terms of walkability, there isn’t much to walk to and if there was, it’d be pretty hard to do so. I go into a bit more detail on the effect on walkability that parking lots have in my Mundelein station review, so check that out if you’re interested. In Munster/Dyer’s case, the effect is equally as noticeable, but it’s less of a hindrance since there aren’t that many interesting places to walk to in the first place.

While the station isn’t very walkable, its existence still serves a grander purpose. With its position near communities like Dyer, Schererville, and Saint John, Munster/Dyer is bound to attract drivers from those areas who wish to have the option to take the train into Chicago instead of their car. Park and rides can still pull good ridership, as Route 59 on Metra’s BNSF line can prove.

Conclusion

While Munster/Dyer may be as clean and well built as a new station could possibly be, its location leaves much to be desired. There’s simply not that much to do around the station, its only purpose is to serve as a park and ride. Combine that with a lackluster train schedule and it’s pretty hard to justify giving it a score above a 7.

With that being said, there is some hope for this station. Northwest Indiana is seeing more development than ever, and I hope to see some of that development start to form around Munster/Dyer station. Hopefully as time moves on, local businesses and multiuse developers begin to expand the area around this station and breath new life into what are now big empty plots of land and single family homes. With the NICTD hopefully aware that the Monon Corridor is in dire need of better service (audible cough), Munster/Dyer has no place to go but up. For now though, seeing as the only benefit this station has is its cleanliness, accessibility, and amenities, I can’t give it much better than:

5.5/10

Thank you for riding with us!