Two roads with one name
Cline Avenue, State Road 912, is really two roads. South of the Borman Expressway it’s a local four-lane divided road through Griffith that ends a mile down at Ridge Road. North of the Borman it becomes a freeway.
The freeway part runs north along the border between Gary and Hammond as far as US 20, then heads toward the lake. It serves the steel mills on the lakefront, the casino in East Chicago and the Gary/Chicago International Airport, and it meets the Indiana Toll Road twice. Since 2003, US 12 has shared the road between East Chicago and Gary, a change made to make room for the airport’s runway expansion.
The bridge
For eleven years, part of Cline Avenue simply wasn’t there. The elevated bridge over the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal closed in 2009 after inspectors found severe corrosion, and it was demolished. A new two-lane toll bridge opened on December 23, 2020.
Where the river goes under
The Grand Calumet River leaves Gary by passing under Cline Avenue, then forms the boundary between East Chicago and Hammond on its way to the Indiana Harbor Canal. It rises in Marquette Park in Gary’s Miller Beach neighborhood, among the dune-and-swale ground of Miller Woods, and crosses the whole industrial lakefront.
Pickup notes for Cline Avenue
- South of the Borman (Griffith): houses and businesses sit right off the road. Give the cross street and say whether the car is in a driveway or a lot.
- North of the Borman: this part is a freeway, so the car will be on a street nearby. Tell us which exit you use to get home.
- Industrial or business property: tell us whose lot it is. The car must be yours, and whoever controls the lot should know it’s leaving.
What we buy near Cline Avenue
Junk, wrecked and scrap cars, running or not: cars with a bent frame, cars that leak oil, or several at one address. Missing the title? We can still help. In Indiana the sale needs either the title or a BMV certificate of authority; tell us what papers you have and we’ll point you to the right one on the call.
Cline Avenue connects to most of what we cover: the Borman, Ridge Road and US 12 into Gary. For everything else, see the rest of our Northwest Indiana area.