Lili Swenson peered closely at a display showing where a South Shore Line station could be located in Dyer.

But she didn't hesitate when asked what she thought of the commuter train service coming to her town.

“I'm very much in favor of it,” Swenson, a Dyer resident, said. “Now my husband and I drive to a Metra station in Illinois when we want to go to Chicago. With this, we could walk to the station.”

She was among about 150 people Tuesday who filed into Protsman Elementary School to learn more about, and voice their opinions on, plans to extend the South Shore's commuter service from Hammond to the border of Dyer and Munster.

The West Lake Corridor plan has been on planners' minds for nearly 30 years, but only in the last few years has it attracted serious local and state funding support.

The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, which runs the South Shore Line, is seeking a Federal Transit Administration grant to pay for half of the project's $603 million estimated cost. The project's draft environmental impact statement — the subject of hearings this week in Dyer, Munster and Hammond — is part of the federal review process.

Paula Jones, of Dyer, carried a petition opposing the project.

“I'm not against the rail line as such,” she said. “But this has been railroaded through without the knowledge of the residents. My conclusion is that Dyer is being dumped on.”

Many of the people at the hearing in Dyer seemed to be looking for information about the project. Displays on aspects of the project lined the school lunchroom's walls.

One showed that a trip to downtown Chicago, which takes an hour and a half now for Swenson and her husband, would be an estimated 47 minutes from the Dyer station.

About a dozen people made oral comments to a court reporter; those comments will be part of the hearing's formal record, and NICTD will respond to them — and to emailed, phoned-in and mailed-in comments to the project's comment sites.

Dyer resident Rod Salata came to find out where the Dyer station would be. He found that his home is about a mile and a half away from the proposed station site, just west of the intersection of Main Street and Sheffield Avenue.

“Convenience-wise, it'd be good for me,” Salata said. Now, he drives across the border to the South Shore station in Chicago's Hegewisch community when he wants to take the train to Chicago.

Dyer resident Kevin Van Noort liked the idea of not having to drive to Hammond to catch the train.

“What's the best way to make traffic lighter? Put a train in,” he said.

Some residents voiced concerns about noise and vibration from the trains.

Several who live near the proposed station said they're worried that commuters driving to and from the parking lot could add to their neighborhoods' traffic problems.

“What are they going to do with all those cars?” Judy Erickson said. “Sometimes you can wait five minutes to get onto Sheffield from our neighborhood now.”

Hammond resident Robert Ochi had mixed feelings about the project.

“Overall, I'm excited,” he said. “But as with everything in Northwest Indiana, the pace is glacial. I'm hopeful, but a little skeptical. They need to maintain the service they already have.”

Dyer Town Council member Mary Tanis observed the hearing and talked to residents.

“We're going to see a big change, and I want to make sure we do it responsively,” she said. “I'm concerned about making sure we have a large enough ridership.”

And during a recent tour of commuter station neighborhoods in the Chicago suburbs, Tanis said, she saw examples of good and bad transit-oriented development.

“If you do your planning well, it can be something very nice,” she said. “We're all working on it.”

Tim Zorn is a freelance reporter.