For an interesting take on how mass transit could help revitalize Indianapolis, see IBJ reporter Chris Oâ??Malleyâ??s story this week on the topic. Ball State grad students
dreamed up several concepts for plunking new rail stations along existing track to not only move people around the city, but
also to spark revitalizations of tired neighborhoods.
Some of the ideas are a bit fanciful. But credit the students for having a pulse.
Mass transit skeptics have long warned that the city is too spread out and too thinly populated to make mass transit cost effective. But the studentsâ?? ideas are designed to increase population density â?? and raise property values.
What do you like about the studentsâ?? ideas? What would work and wouldnâ??t work?
Some of the ideas are a bit fanciful. But credit the students for having a pulse.
Mass transit skeptics have long warned that the city is too spread out and too thinly populated to make mass transit cost effective. But the studentsâ?? ideas are designed to increase population density â?? and raise property values.
What do you like about the studentsâ?? ideas? What would work and wouldnâ??t work?
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People are hungry for good public transit and will relocate to be adjacent to it. Maybe then we will stem the drain of business development out to the suburbs.
Two lines should be built right now. The Fishers line and a line out to the airport with a connection between the two. Additional ones should be built as demand requires.
I like that the BSU kids are thinking ahead, but most of their ideas were fairly impractical. That said, the use of mass transit as a development tool is very true and very possible. And the locations they had their stations positioned are about where they should be. areas where plenty of room for development exists.
I don't necessarily think that Portland is the way to model Indianapolis development. They have a much stricter land-use code and they have development boundaries. Despite my love of Portland, I don't think that Indiana is ready for that much governmental power. Instead, the region could create regional zones. You would be able to develop anywhere, however within the zones nearer to the current development assistance would be provided by the city/county/region to build infrastructure (i.e., highways, sewer systems, mass transit, etc.) and make it so the PUDs are more interconnected and denser than currently. Then as you go further out, a developer could still build units but would have to pay for all the improvements themselves and would therefor make less of a profit and make it less desirable to build in zones further out.
Finally, I don't think that there is an entrenched bias against higher density living in Indianapolis. I just don't think that the region has had the right projects to spur this style of demand. There are several projects within Indy that are higher density. The Near Eastside is a different can of worms. Neighborhoods like the Old Northside, Lockerbie Square, and downtown Carmel, show that Indy is ready for high density development.
Another element is the series of lakes for pollution control. To acquire the land on the east bank of Fall Creek would be expensive and require heavy government involvement (money) to make it happen. And unless I missed something, why would the northern of the 5 lakes be the one for fishing and recreation when it would seem to be the most polluted. Since Fall Creek runs south, the southern one would seem to be the cleanest. It is a neat idea, along the lines of the Pogues Run flood protection project.
I admire the kids for having a great imagination, but this is typical of pie in the sky dreams of college projects. Like the DisneyWorld Main Streets that many of these kids design over and over in class, but have little chance of seeing the light of day. If they truly wanted to do a project to convince people light rail is the way to go, they should have used some more reasonable projects that would get people interested.
Every time someone proposes a more-dense alternative for Broad Ripple right along the Monon, the anti-density crowd comes out in force. Likewise with the northeastern neighborhoods downtown. I think the evidence clearly shows an anti-density bias.
I know that Indygo has run further routes lately and did run further North when gas prices were higher, but I haven't heard much about the success or lack thereof. If ridership were greater and seats were in demand, prices for public transportation would go up. It doesn't seem like that will happen anytime soon. or at least until the Obama adminstration is successful in adding massive energy taxes as they have planned to do.
Maybe if they had some express buses that only stopped every 15 blocks or so more people would ride them.