Indianapolis Follows The Wrong Footsteps

In November an Indianapolis group called Indy Connect released their long range vision for transit in the region. It's chock full of all the stuff transit geeks love including lines on maps. I'm not going to go into the details of the plan as Yonah at Transport Politic has already got that angle. Additionally, the locals at Urban Indy have done a good job getting the initial reactions from folks on the ground.

But I definitely approve of bringing down the bus headways to real levels that would start to make ridership equal that of other regions of similar size. Places like Austin, Columbus, and Charlotte are similar size with daily ridership much higher.

Austin - 108,300
Columbus - 58,400
Charlotte - 103,500
Indianapolis - 29,700

But that's not really the issue I wanted to address. Also in the plan are several commuter rail lines, light rail, and BRT that isn't really RT due to its lack of dedicated lanes in the plan. The light rail has been pushed back I'm assuming based on cost and the first rail corridor they want to build is the Northeast Line. While this looks like the deal of the century, they should really take advantage of the fact that they are late to the Transit Space Race by looking at what other regions have done and the consequences of their actions.

Politically it looks like a short term winner with a long term loser. Build the commuter rail line on an existing freight rail ROW on the cheap to get voters in suburban jurisdictions to buy into the plan. They'll vote for it because its cheap and the voters of the main jurisdiction will think they are getting a rail line because that's what you're selling with pictures of commuter lines in Chicago and Philadelphia and Austin. But the people that really want it will just get bus lines for their trouble.

Curious that last city I listed. Because they went first, Austin tested the waters with this type of plan. Back in 2000 there was a light rail election that lost by less than 2,000 votes because George Bush was on the ballot among other reasons. That line would have hit all the employment centers and gotten about 37,000 riders, more than all of Indianapolis' transit does now. But it lost, so in 2004 Austin got the politically palatable solution that is now a commuter rail line taking about 800 riders a day from Leander to the North to the outskirts of downtown Austin. Take a look at these cities aerial photos and let me know if you see something familiar.

Indianapolis - Left Yellow is the University, Middle Yellow is Downtown, State Capital and the red line is the commuter rail.


Austin - Top Yellow is University of Texas, Bottom Yellow is State Capital and Downtown


See a resemblance? Both lines skirt places people want to go. Austin's line gets around 800 riders a day. For the last 6 years Austin has been discussing urban rail to go places where the commuter rail line did not go. However the plan keeps getting pushed back for a number of different reasons that are mostly political. But if they would have done the right line first, neighborhoods all over the city would be begging for extensions to a current system. The politics would be a no brainer but as it currently stands, people are still a little hesitant to put their money where their mouth is in terms of an actual urban rail plan in Austin. That's not to say they aren't working on it, but it's a very uphill battle.

That's the political price that Indy is going to pay if they build the NE Corridor first. Forget all the good will of increased headways and higher ridership for the rest of the system. Charlotte has shown that people won't remember you for your increased ridership. I'm guessing that before the 1998 sales tax increase, Charlotte was in a similar place as Indianapolis is now. But the opposition picked apart the half cent mercilessly and focused on the train. Luckily the train was a success and Charlotte saved their half cent sales tax from repeal, but the attack was on right away. So in a place like Indy where people are much more afraid of taxes for these types of expenditures, if you're going to build a line, do it right or that cheap victory is going to end up being an expensive long term defeat.

But where should the line go? Well let's look at Austin's 37,000 expected ridership year 2000 alignment or Houston's line that passes 290,000+ jobs or even Phoenix which hits the major downtown corridor and Arizona State. It's about the job connections. These lines connected jobs to people. So where are Indy's jobs?

Looking at LEHD data from On the Map, we can see that employment is clustered around the CBD and State complex. The University is a major employer as well to the west of the downtown cluster with the big red dot. (Red = 10k jobs)


But take a look at where the Red line goes, which is the Northeast Corridor. The yellow line is my idea of where a transit corridor should be. And while there are is a fake BRT corridor that goes where the Yellow line is on the map above, it won't get the same type of TOD investment and revitalization they are hoping for unless they rig the headways really high to 5-10 minutes for Rapid service all day or build dedicated lanes for rail or bus.

But the other reason I think that Yellow line is key is because if you look at where the downtown workers actually live at densities that might warrant transit capacity like that, it's not on that red line but up the yellow one. Again LEHD data:

You could also make a strong case for the light rail line if it were a bit north on the West side and crossed downtown and hit the University. While the commuter rail line might be a good idea for a mature transit system, it's future political suicide for expansion prospects. The reason being is that the region is not going to get any worthwhile excitement in terms of sheer ridership numbers for a starter rail line. Houston got ~40,000 riders to start. Charlotte got ~16,000 riders to start and Phoenix is at ~35,000 by connecting major destinations on the corridors. If this line is like Austin and so far its looking like that is the case, I'm going to bet on an anemic 500-2000 riders at most.

Again that is a short term win looking for a long term loss. If I were Indy, I would start pushing hard to have that North BRT line dedicated ROW, or do a tram-train to Noblesville. The tram-train is likely to get killer ridership and suburban support. There is the benefit of learning from those who have gone before and made the mistakes. No need to make them again so that you're hamstrung into the future. I'm all for trains as people who have read this site over the years know, but do it right, or don't do it at all.

Support for Transit by the Brick Yard

71% of people in Indianapolis would pay to fund transit. Seems like a movement is growing. However, I personally don't like the idea of starting with suburban commuter rail. Given that urbanites will pay for most of the line to the suburbs, its just another example of exporting tax base.

More on City Competitiveness & The MEniverse

In a similar discussion as the post below on Charlotte's competitiveness, Brendan O'Shaughnessy at the Indianapolis Star discusses why it is that Indianapolis isn't as competitive. The reason? The want to keep the cost of government low.

Indianapolis spends far less than these other cities on government -- and consequently spends far less on such things as parks, public transportation, the arts and libraries, amenities that some people view as optional but that experts see as critical to making a city vibrant and competitive.

Indianapolis' spending choices underscore two core community values: thrift and an affinity for small government.

It sure explains a lot and offers a vision of what a more libertarian type future would be like. The point seems to be that they don't value the commonwealth ideals as much as regions like Portland and Seattle who value parks and libraries.

"The unwillingness to gut it up for big expenditures made it hard to keep pace with other cities," Hudnut said. "It's very tough to fund some of these necessary improvements if you campaign on a no-tax mantra."

The no-tax mantra is alive and well as we know from the famous Grover Norquist wish to shrink government so much that it could be drowned in a bathtub. But this no-tax policy also seems to be killing needed services and common goals. Unfortunately, people don't quite understand the value of networks when thinking about the beginning of transit or parks for that matter. It's all about what benefits me now and not the Universe of benefits but rather the MEniverse.

Melyssa Donaghy, an anti-tax activist with Hoosiers for Fair Taxation, acknowledges as much. "I don't use the parks except the Monon Trail," she said. "I don't think it's affecting my quality of life. What's affecting my quality of life is the ability to pay my bills."

Sure it might not be affecting your quality of life, but what about others? What about things that do affect your quality of life that others don't want to pay for. This comes up with transit as well. Why should I pay for that if I don't use it. Well, the people who will take transit often pay for your roads, why should they do that? If I take BART to work every day, why should I pay for the new Bay Bridge span? It doesn't benefit me directly. Therein lies the problem.

I think this answers why older rust belt cities are doomed to die a slow painful death. Places like Cincinnati and Indianapolis will never be havens for the creative class unless they start investing money in their cities instead of being misers. Being cheap in the MEniverse is easy. Investing in all aspects of community, well that takes civic pride and a willingness to provide common wealth for the common good.

Thinking Transit by the Brickyard

I guess gas prices really do have an impact, especially when they get cities like Indy talking about transit. I must say though that its a little misleading to talk about a system when you really just mean one line. I'm sure I'm guilty of saying it too, but when I think system, I think multi-line blowout. Perhaps they'll get there.