
Indy City-County Council considers $27.2M spring spending package
Officials have slated $19.7 million for the Department of Public Works, mostly for capital projects, snow removal and road safety.
Officials have slated $19.7 million for the Department of Public Works, mostly for capital projects, snow removal and road safety.
Town leaders want to improve and widen a 2.2-mile stretch of West 236th Street from State Road 38 to just east of Six Points Road; they want the county to help with the financing.
Allowing each councilor to choose an improvement project is part of an initiative by Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration to invest in roads, parks and dangerous intersections throughout Marion County.
But some city-county councilors are so tired of waiting on the Legislature to act that they are suggesting exploring city-based solutions.
The City-County Council is expected on Monday night to approve a sweeping measure that has the ambitious goal of eliminating pedestrian fatalities by 2035.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett also announced a plan to spend at least $30 million more in 2024 on residential street and alley improvements, school pedestrian safety and increased traffic enforcement in bike lanes.
Indianapolis officials hope an alliance with other central Indiana leaders will finally persuade legislators to either alter the formula or find other ways to provide more infrastructure dollars to densely populated areas.
Officials are working on finding the $60 million, which will likely include federal funding, to pay for it.
Residents are taking a do-it-yourself approach to tweaking specific stretches of road by their schools, businesses and neighborhoods to better protect children and neighbors.
The city identified 605 residential lane miles across Indianapolis that are in particularly poor condition. The city is allocating enough money to fix only about 10% of those miles, starting as soon as next spring.
Officials are estimating the corridor improvements will run $47 million over the project’s original $124 million budget.
An $8 million DPW budget increase proposed Thursday would add street operators and a second shift of operations. Also on Thursday, the public works committee unanimously approved a proposal to appropriate $40 million in revenue bonds to fund road and bridge infrastructure.
Lyft, the San-Francisco-based ride-sharing company, has plans to deploy as many as 1,200 scooters in Indianapolis after receiving final approval from the city Thursday.
By 2022, the city and the Indiana Department of Transportation expect to begin widening a half-mile section of the thoroughfare from Shamrock Boulevard to East Street.
Downtown community groups and neighbors fought the state’s original plan that called for road widening, saying the interstates would encroach even farther into residential areas.
As one of Hamilton Crossing Centre’s key tenants prepares to close its doors, the future of the Kite Realty development along Meridian Street in Carmel remains unclear.
The city is planning extensive infrastructure work for Olio from 141st to 146th streets that officials hope will make vacant land in the area more marketable.
The regulations, passed 19-6 by the council, pave the way for Lime and Bird to return scooters to Indianapolis after they receive permits and agree to new conditions and fees.
An Indianapolis City-Council committee on Thursday evening voted to regulate businesses that rent out the dockless electric scooters that have caught on quickly since popping up around the city in the past two weeks.
City code enforcement officials sent the company a letter asking them to halt their service for 30 days while the city works out a regulatory scheme that would tackle dockless bike and scooter sharing.