Indianapolis and public transportation

[ajf131]

Chicago, St. Louis, and Cleveland have the best light-rail systems in the Midwest IMO. Columbus and Indy are the only major cities of the Midwest I know of without a light rail. I think KC and cincy have them and Milwaukee? I'm sure Minneapolis/Saint Paul does. In any case, Indy is one of those cities where, like ST. Louis, having a car is useful. Four major interstates cross paths in both of these cities.

[WDCJoe]

What people should also remember is that all transit options are subsidized. From the smooth four lane freeway to the bridge that one uses to cross the White River, none pay the full share of supporting the structure utilized.

What really kills me however is people who live in far flung suburbs going on a rant about transit that doesn’t benefit or support them. These are the same people who throw in the argument that once built, the “undesirables” will come and prey on them.

This sort of argument exists in Atlanta, a city with woeful commuting conditions. They are consistently ranked as one of the top traffic congested cities in the country. Why? Because the same naysayers above voted against the expansion and community subsidization of Metra. Utilizing their arguments, the metro area of Atlanta decided to finance road building instead, and the consequence is traffic clogged sixteen lane freeways, and a subway system that goes no-where.

A city utilizing the exact opposite argument (Washington, DC, my current home) built and invested heavily in rail transit. The result, we’re still ranked highly in terms of traffic congestion, however the walkability and sheer vastness of methods utilized to get to work, detract from traffic woes. Yes one can decide to get on the freeway and sit for two hours fuming, however these very same individuals have the option of getting on a commuter rail, bus, or the metro subway. Many chose the latter making our transit system the second most heavily utilized in the nation. These transit options have also had the added benefit of creating urban nodes all of the city. We have dense walkable urban centers even in the suburbs such as Silver Spring MD, Takoma Park MD, Bethesda MD, Rockville MD and the entire county of Arlington VA is considered one walkable urban center. These communities didn’t exist in the current state prior to Metro, and definitely would not have come to fruition without.

Indianapolis is a great city, and can be even greater. To make the city greater however, people will have to wake up and realize that all transit options are subsidized. Everyone gets a free lunch in some way. The funniest part though, is that the very people doing the most complaining (the far out suburbanites) are getting the biggest free lunches out of us all. Think of the resources utilized in constructing infrastructure improvements in newly built out areas as opposed to utilizing brown-field areas within the city proper. New areas require new roads, new electricity grids, new water supplies, additional schools, and new and expanded services, (ie: fire and police). None of this comes free, and by constructing new more costs are incurred, (at the expense of tax payers).

These same suburbanites tout that they live in beautiful communities, paid for and supported by their own ilk, (which is an untruth). Tax payers pay for the expansion of the roads, as they do the other infrastructure improvements.

It has been demonstrated, that cities cannot build their roads out of traffic congestion. Adding a lane only encourages more people to get on, ultimately filling the added lane to capacity within a short period of time. The better answer is to “mix it up”. Add roads, but add mass transit as well. Mass transit takes some of the people off the road, and has the added benefit of encouraging greater density and desirability. Greater densities in turn equate to greater tax revenue for the city. Road only processes only encourage the opposite, low density, low population, less desirable areas. Indianapolis has an estimated population within the metro area of over 2 million people now. It’s time to wake up and begin planning accordingly. Do you want a thriving urban center full of amenities or the status quo of hit or miss brown-field surrounded by wealthy auto-centric suburbs. The choice is yours. As a pause for thought however, Saint Louis and Detroit opted for the latter, (And the result?), crime laden abandoned centers, surrounded by suburban auto-centric wealthy utopias. Is this something to emulate?

[Rambone]

I have no use for a light rail system in Indianapolis, an even less use for whining socialists who want to use my tax money to subsidize their need for "progress" (whatever that term means today) or their constant need to be trendy and hip. Indianapolis is a commuter city. We don't need to waste millions of dollars building a light rail system that no one will use. We've already got a bus system that very few people use. We love our cars, and the layout of Indianapolis/Marion County does not support light rail. People in the suburbs live there for a reason. I'm sure many who live in Marion County rarely ever venture downtown, unless it's for a concert or game...then it's back out to the suburbs for pizza and beer.

You love Chicago or DC? Great! Move to Chicago or DC! The United States has 50 states with several metropolitan areas. I'm sure the light rail whiners that are more than happy to spend MY money on their fetish would be much happier in a more "progressive" city.

Personally, I think Indianapolis and its suburbs are just fine for my needs. The traffic is not nearly as bad as the God-awful messes that exist in Chicago, NY, Houston, etc. I know, I've been there. Anyone living in Indy and griping about traffic needs to get out more. I work in downtown Indy. Parking is never a problem, the cost pales in comparison to the more "progressive" cities mentioned here. Taxes are relatively low for a metro area. The schools are decent. There is a good mix of industry here, including pharmaceuticals, high tech, etc. Crime is a little lower than some places, a little higher than others....but not likely to be a major concern if you are not out slinging dope or caught up in a domestic situation with a lunatic.

Gotta love the nobility of amateur social engineers, armed with the fruits of other people's labor.

[WDCJoe]

Originally Posted by Rambone

I have no use for a light rail system in Indianapolis, an even less use for whining socialists who want to use my tax money to subsidize their need for "progress" (whatever that term means today) or their constant need to be trendy and hip. Indianapolis is a commuter city. We don't need to waste millions of dollars building a light rail system that no one will use. We've already got a bus system that very few people use. We love our cars, and the layout of Indianapolis/Marion County does not support light rail. People in the suburbs live there for a reason. I'm sure many who live in Marion County rarely ever venture downtown, unless it's for a concert or game...then it's back out to the suburbs for pizza and beer.

You love Chicago or DC? Great! Move to Chicago or DC! The United States has 50 states with several metropolitan areas. I'm sure the light rail whiners that are more than happy to spend MY money on their fetish would be much happier in a more "progressive" city.

Personally, I think Indianapolis and its suburbs are just fine for my needs. The traffic is not nearly as bad as the God-awful messes that exist in Chicago, NY, Houston, etc. I know, I've been there. Anyone living in Indy and griping about traffic needs to get out more. I work in downtown Indy. Parking is never a problem, the cost pales in comparison to the more "progressive" cities mentioned here. Taxes are relatively low for a metro area. The schools are decent. There is a good mix of industry here, including pharmaceuticals, high tech, etc. Crime is a little lower than some places, a little higher than others....but not likely to be a major concern if you are not out slinging dope or caught up in a domestic situation with a lunatic.

Gotta love the nobility of amateur social engineers, armed with the fruits of other people's labor.

Well to be honest with you the fruit of other peoples labor supports the life style choices you make in Indy. Do people in Indy pay their true full share for utilizing the roads and highways within the city? Do people in Indy pay their true full share for utilizing education, fire coverage, and police coverage? Do suburbanites pay the full cost of running new pipes and electricity lines to new sprawling suburbs? The answer is no. The costs for these services are broadly covered by everyone. This is done to reduce the costs of these services. Nothing new or socialist about it. It can indeed be likened to liberal causes, but liberal causes stemming from the nineteenth century.

This is no different from mass transit. Mass transit is a service that benefits the entire urban community. Instead of letting brownfield neighborhoods sit as population holes within the city, these areas are better utilized and developed as living and working quarters. This in turn has the added benefit of raising tax revenue for the city as a whole allowing for additional investment.

Look at Salt Lake City a city smaller than Indy. They instituted a light rail system. Most of the population was against its installation arguing that the city was too small and did not have the necessary population density to support a system. They built it however and too everyone’s surprise, ridership was four times expected numbers. Initial projections estimated 15000 riders, however upon opening ridership was found to be 60,000. Ridership was indeed so high that one of the trains broke down due to overloading. The result in Salt Lake has a green light on future expansion within the city. A city of 1.1 million versus Indy’s nearly 2.

To conclude you stated that no one rides the bus in Indy. Could it be the reasoning for the lack of ridership has more to do with the lack of investment rather than the lack of interest? Louisville, KY to the south of Indy has a metro area similar in size to Salt Lake City’s with a metro area of around 1.3 million, however they operate 240 busses 51 routes and support an annual ridership of 15.8 million. They are now exploring light rail options for the city.

Compare this level of investment with Indy. Indygo currently operates a bus fleet of 150 with a total of 28 routes. Not surprisingly with such limited availability spread over an even greater area, ridership drops to 9 million annually for Indy. Now how do you explain this? A city with nearly half the population supports a mass transit system nearly twice the size of the larger city? Perhaps the lack of attention and investment has more to do with ridership as no one will use a system deemed unreliable.

[chalcedony]

Originally Posted by ajf131

Chicago, St. Louis, and Cleveland have the best light-rail systems in the Midwest IMO. Columbus and Indy are the only major cities of the Midwest I know of without a light rail. I think KC and cincy have them and Milwaukee? I'm sure Minneapolis/Saint Paul does. In any case, Indy is one of those cities where, like ST. Louis, having a car is useful. Four major interstates cross paths in both of these cities.

For the record, of the big cities in the Midwest, the following are lacking any major rail mass transit system: Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and (if you count it as part of the Midwest) Louisville. Detroit and Indianapolis have "people movers" which circulate around various parts of downtown but cannot be useful for commuter purposes.

Smaller but fast-growing cities in the Midwest to watch for are Madison, Omaha, and (especially Des Moines). If they grow at the current clip they could be perceived at the same level as slow growing cities of today like Louisville, Cincinnati, or Milwaukee. Columbus, Indianapolis, and Kansas City are growing fast enough that they may soon catch up in metro size with Cleveland or St. Louis. Detroit and Minneapolis have similar sized metros, with Minneapolis growing quickly and Detroit hemorrhaging population.

[AmericanDirt]

Originally Posted by Rambone

I have no use for a light rail system in Indianapolis, an even less use for whining socialists who want to use my tax money to subsidize their need for "progress" (whatever that term means today) or their constant need to be trendy and hip. Indianapolis is a commuter city. We don't need to waste millions of dollars building a light rail system that no one will use. We've already got a bus system that very few people use. We love our cars, and the layout of Indianapolis/Marion County does not support light rail. People in the suburbs live there for a reason. I'm sure many who live in Marion County rarely ever venture downtown, unless it's for a concert or game...then it's back out to the suburbs for pizza and beer.

You love Chicago or DC? Great! Move to Chicago or DC! The United States has 50 states with several metropolitan areas. I'm sure the light rail whiners that are more than happy to spend MY money on their fetish would be much happier in a more "progressive" city.

Personally, I think Indianapolis and its suburbs are just fine for my needs. The traffic is not nearly as bad as the God-awful messes that exist in Chicago, NY, Houston, etc. I know, I've been there. Anyone living in Indy and griping about traffic needs to get out more. I work in downtown Indy. Parking is never a problem, the cost pales in comparison to the more "progressive" cities mentioned here. Taxes are relatively low for a metro area. The schools are decent. There is a good mix of industry here, including pharmaceuticals, high tech, etc. Crime is a little lower than some places, a little higher than others....but not likely to be a major concern if you are not out slinging dope or caught up in a domestic situation with a lunatic.

Gotta love the nobility of amateur social engineers, armed with the fruits of other people's labor.

It's great to get perspectives like that of Rambone because it helps explain the severe push/pull gestures we see towards increasing mass transit in a city like Indianapolis. No doubt these exist in every metro area, and Indianapolis is hardly alone in having weak transit, though it is certainly weaker than most. Let it be known that I'm a political independent who also can't stand the phrase "progressive" because it smacks of liberal smugness (just like "moral values" reeks of conservative sanctimoniousness).

But before anyone dismisses the idea of expanding mass transit in Indianapolis, I'd love to get answers to the following questions:

- As many of the baby boomers age, we will soon confront an exponentially growing elderly population who cannot drive as easily. How are they to get around Marion County when there is no bus system, let alone sidewalks in 70% of the city? (Even the suburbs have caught on to the idea of good sidewalks.) Do we just expect their kids to drive them around, or ship them off to assisted living centers?

- What about some of the beautiful buildings downtown that sit vacant, like the Illinois Building, the Consolidated, or the McQuat, all of which would easily be snatched by developers if it weren't for the shortage of off-street parking? Do we sit and lit them rot? And what about the oceans of surface parking lots that could be developed if it weren't for the ridiculous need for parking, even though most of these lots are private and stay vacant during big events like Colts games?

- You say crime is pretty low and schools are decent in the suburbs. Well, the outer townships of Marion County, places like Warren Township and Wayne Township are rapidly confronting the problems that previously only plagued IPS: weakening schools, increases in crime, even some early signs of abandoned or foreclosed homes with no one to take their place. What's to stop this from spreading to all of Marion County as apartment complexes age, and then, eventually, of course, what will stop it from moving to Fishers and Carmel and Brownsburg and Greenwood? Then where will the suburbanites go when the suburbs are no longer "just fine"--farther out? Wasn't it the highly respected (and centrist) mayor Bill Hudnut who said, "You can't be a suburb of nothing?"

- You say we have a good mix of industry here, and I'd agree. The city is better educated than the national average (a striking difference from most of the rest of Indiana) and does have good jobs. But grand poobah Eli Lilly is cutting nearly 10% of its workforce over the next two years and much of that will be highly educated people here in Indy. How is a city to attract well-educated folks if it has a downtown full of vacant buildings and even the suburban areas have high crime and declining schools? Surely a certain quality of life must be drawing people back to the center, or at least keep them from moving out. What's to stop them from leaving the region altogteher? You can say you don't want to be Chicago and that's fine: natives of that city often seem blind to its many significant problems of corruption and hypersegregation (i.e., it's hardly a "great world city" when you look at the south side of town). But at least it remains a place in which a considerable number of people want to live. Do you see Detroit as an aspiration?

[AmericanDirt]

A now nationally recognized local blogger has argued that the Midwest is holding itself back because so much of the region is content with mediocrity. While I disagree with this assertion (in that it's not unique to the Midwest and not uniformly the case even in places that do seem a bit too complacent), I can't help but think that Rambone's attitude does reflect a certain stasis in aspirations. If such an attitude were widespread or embraced by our city leaders, we would never have gotten the Colts, or the NCAA, or the biotech corridor, or the second-biggest city for tourists and conventions in the Midwest. If Indianapolis wants to enter the next tier of cities (and face it, every city does) it will have to start thinking about improved mass transit. Thankfully it is, far more seriously than ever before.

If we were to divert some--if not most--of the money used in road widening to transit and pedestrian improvements, we could incrementally make a dent at addressing some of those problems above. Superwide highways only encourage more car travel, immediately inducing demand for wider highways while cutting back on the value generating capacity of privately owned land. (Let's face it, roads are just as much a subsidy-without-profit as transit.) Certainly some sprawl is inevitable, but it needs to take place while minimizing the decline of the original center. It's certainly better than moving the other direction, which could very well be a city where the value of homes and businesses is shrinking while the social problems (crime, poor schools, abandoment) continue to grow, with reduced public monies available to address these issues. In other words, we'd have Detroit.

[WDCJoe]

Originally Posted by AmericanDirt

It's great to get perspectives like that of Rambone because it helps explain the severe push/pull gestures we see towards increasing mass transit in a city like Indianapolis. No doubt these exist in every metro area, and Indianapolis is hardly alone in having weak transit, though it is certainly weaker than most. Let it be known that I'm a political independent who also can't stand the phrase "progressive" because it smacks of liberal smugness (just like "moral values" reeks of conservative sanctimoniousness).

But before anyone dismisses the idea of expanding mass transit in Indianapolis, I'd love to get answers to the following questions:

- As many of the baby boomers age, we will soon confront an exponentially growing elderly population who cannot drive as easily. How are they to get around Marion County when there is no bus system, let alone sidewalks in 70% of the city? (Even the suburbs have caught on to the idea of good sidewalks.) Do we just expect their kids to drive them around, or ship them off to assisted living centers?

- What about some of the beautiful buildings downtown that sit vacant, like the Illinois Building, the Consolidated, or the McQuat, all of which would easily be snatched by developers if it weren't for the shortage of off-street parking? Do we sit and lit them rot? And what about the oceans of surface parking lots that could be developed if it weren't for the ridiculous need for parking, even though most of these lots are private and stay vacant during big events like Colts games?

- You say crime is pretty low and schools are decent in the suburbs. Well, the outer townships of Marion County, places like Warren Township and Wayne Township are rapidly confronting the problems that previously only plagued IPS: weakening schools, increases in crime, even some early signs of abandoned or foreclosed homes with no one to take their place. What's to stop this from spreading to all of Marion County as apartment complexes age, and then, eventually, of course, what will stop it from moving to Fishers and Carmel and Brownsburg and Greenwood? Then where will the suburbanites go when the suburbs are no longer "just fine"--farther out? Wasn't it the highly respected (and centrist) mayor Bill Hudnut who said, "You can't be a suburb of nothing?"

- You say we have a good mix of industry here, and I'd agree. The city is better educated than the national average (a striking difference from most of the rest of Indiana) and does have good jobs. But grand poobah Eli Lilly is cutting nearly 10% of its workforce over the next two years and much of that will be highly educated people here in Indy. How is a city to attract well-educated folks if it has a downtown full of vacant buildings and even the suburban areas have high crime and declining schools? Surely a certain quality of life must be drawing people back to the center, or at least keep them from moving out. What's to stop them from leaving the region altogteher? You can say you don't want to be Chicago and that's fine: natives of that city often seem blind to its many significant problems of corruption and hypersegregation (i.e., it's hardly a "great world city" when you look at the south side of town). But at least it remains a place in which a considerable number of people want to live. Do you see Detroit as an aspiration?

In my opinion, the oceanns of parking lots are what really detracts from a vibrant downtown. Who wants to walk across an acre of parking lot during 90 degree days?

[WDCJoe]

Originally Posted by AmericanDirt

A now nationally recognized local blogger has argued that the Midwest is holding itself back because so much of the region is content with mediocrity. While I disagree with this assertion (in that it's not unique to the Midwest and not uniformly the case even in places that do seem a bit too complacent), I can't help but think that Rambone's attitude does reflect a certain stasis in aspirations. If such an attitude were widespread or embraced by our city leaders, we would never have gotten the Colts, or the NCAA, or the biotech corridor, or the second-biggest city for tourists and conventions in the Midwest. If Indianapolis wants to enter the next tier of cities (and face it, every city does) it will have to start thinking about improved mass transit. Thankfully it is, far more seriously than ever before.

If we were to divert some--if not most--of the money used in road widening to transit and pedestrian improvements, we could incrementally make a dent at addressing some of those problems above. Superwide highways only encourage more car travel, immediately inducing demand for wider highways while cutting back on the value generating capacity of privately owned land. (Let's face it, roads are just as much a subsidy-without-profit as transit.) Certainly some sprawl is inevitable, but it needs to take place while minimizing the decline of the original center. It's certainly better than moving the other direction, which could very well be a city where the value of homes and businesses is shrinking while the social problems (crime, poor schools, abandoment) continue to grow, with reduced public monies available to address these issues. In other words, we'd have Detroit.

True. Cities must remain malleable in future developmental decision making.