Dozens of students joined local environmentalists last Thursday to protest plans to build an overpass that would carve into Briar East Woods, a 32-acre, 4,000-year-old forest in Hammond’s Hessville neighborhood near PNW. The protest, which took place near the Hammond campus’ 173rd Street entrance, sought to ask PNW’s help to preserve one of the last surviving examples of High Tolleston Dune. For seven years the city has been planning and raising funds for the construction of the Governors Parkway bridge, an overpass that would be built in the woods. It would link 173rd Street and 169th Street between Parrish Avenue and Grand Avenue. Proponents say the overpass will reduce travel time for motorists and emergency response vehicles by raising traffic over railroad crossings that are often blocked by trains. Protestors asked PNW, which owns seven acres of the forest, not to sell the land to the city for overpass construction.