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Left unaddressed is how a road with less lanes is cheaper to maintain for a city like, I dunno, Indianapolis that is being robbed of road funding by the state of Indiana.
…but road diets *do* work. We know they work. There’s mountains of data and applied practice showing that they work. They improve safety, reduce crashes, and improve the road to make sure that it’s available for everyone to use safety, regardless of mode of transportation. The point of a public right of way is that it is a public road meant for everyone, not just people in cars.
Noblesville did a road diet on Allisonville reducing it to one lane each way and putting in a bi-directional bike lane. With just these minor improvements, it discourages speeding and makes it more in-line when it transitions to 10th Street.
Traffic safety should not be a red/blue thing.
Great to see this possible change in the stupid, long-standing fashion of removing lanes of traffic willy-nilly with the assumption that anything that befouls vehicular traffic flow is each and every time always a public good. In Indianapolis they have been destroying our urban traffic grid for 25 years now with stupid “road diets” and other decorating-in-the-street initiatives. Good riddance.
I’ve been amazed at the reaction from some drivers, like Richard S. The perception is that cross town trip will take two minutes longer and the stupid government is taking away my right (ability) to speed in my car and they HAVE NO RIGHT!
I can see that, but what this attitude doesn’t take into account is the people and businesses that live on these inner city highways, enduring endless high speed crashes. Look at 38th street from Fall Creek to the IMA. Residents have moved out. It’s lined with abandoned unrentable apartment buildings. Business struggle. All of the landscaping and beatification has been destroyed in multiple car crashes. So, if your attitude is “it’s all about me and my right to drive as fast as I want”, then yes, I can understand how you don’t see the science and the reality.
Oh… I forget to mention what high speed traffic does to walkability or the ability to use alternate forms of transportation like bicycles. These are PUBLIC rights of way.
It’s only the people who don’t actually live in Indianapolis and only use our roads to commute directly to work and directly to their suburban home, and who want to do so as fast as possible, who complain about road diets. They see arriving to their destination two minutes earlier as more important than the lives being destroyed by our current traffic grid that prioritizes speed over safety.
If I were the city of Indianapolis, I’d offer a moratorium on road diets in exchange for fixing the funding formula and fully funding Indianapolis’ infrastructure. The dynamic of prioritizing commuters over residents so prevalent 60 years ago has been swinging the other way for some time, and suburbanites expecting Indianapolis residents to just allow city streets to be junior interstates are living in the past.
It’s only the people who don’t actually live in Indianapolis and only use our roads to commute directly to work and directly to their suburban home, and who want to do so as fast as possible, who complain about road diets. They see arriving to their destination two minutes earlier as more important than the lives being destroyed by our current traffic grid that prioritizes speed over safety.
I expect the accuracy of this assumption by you (you are flat wrong) matches your accuracy in other areas. Confidently clueless.
I’m with Richard on this one. Our city streets have been destroyed by this stupid concept, thank god it’s being reversed at the Federal level- not that it will change anything locally. Major thoroughfares were designed into our street grid from day one. Now we have no thoroughfares-all our streets are now secondary streets. If we want to be a city that hosts major events downtown. or have vibrant businesses downtown, we need to be able to get people in and out of downtown quickly. The only people I hear advocating for this are people who willingly bought houses on major thoroughfares, and now regret that.
It will be decades before there’s enough people living downtown to support a vibrant business environment. I hope all you proponents of this enjoy riding your bikes past empty storefronts, thats what’s already happening down here, and it’s only going to get worse.
It’s called the interstate. It gets people in and out of downtown very quickly. The state of Indiana chose to fund the construction of it (in part) with our gas tax dollars. It has alleviated the need for Washington and Madison and Keystone and Fall Creek to continue to be highways, which is great because I think most Indianapolis residents would prefer their local roads get paved over keeping that unneeded third lane for some freeloading out-of-county commuters.
This must hit so hard if you know nothing about history
Your ignorance is showing. Starting in 1920 the city went through a process of creating major thoroughfares like College Avenue, Delaware Street, and Illinois Street by tearing down buildings to straighten out roads. Starting in the 50’s until the 80’s, there was a huge push to create a system of high volume and high speed one way streets. In the 70’s we blew up whole neighborhoods and their street grids to build Interstates. So you lost me as soon as you said our current street grid was designed this way from day one.
There were a few streets designed as major thoroughfares, like Washington St, Michigan Road and interestly Meridian Street where you can see what money and political pull accomplished north of 38th street where blowing the road up to highway standards has always been resisted. The lanes are narrow and it forces traffic to slow down.
So educate yourself about how the city has been actively involved in changing the the street grid before you state it’s been designed this way from day one.
I live downtown and in my census block, roughly 5 blocks square, there are 10,009 residents. Just to south, in an area bounded by Washington Street, the Interstate, Michigan Street, and Alabama street, has more than 12,000 residents with more apartments and condos coming online. We support three grocery stores all located just 5 minutes or less from each other. It seems downtown has the population to support a vibrant community already.
I called the Mayor’s Action Center about the concrete barriers placed on McCarty St from Missouri St to Kentucky Ave blocking off a lane of traffic. These barriers are being struck by motorists and make it difficult to make the turn onto McCarty off of Missouri. MAC has not been able to give me a reason why they are there. I hope it is not some misguided experiment to see if they can eliminate this lane. Count me as a NO if so. Anyone out there have insight as to their purpose? They have been there since prior to Taylor Swift’s concert.