Opposition To Red Line's College Avenue Route Grows
The Indianapolis Star's John Tuohy has a story about the growing opposition of north side residents to the proposed bus rapid transit line running down the already highly-trafficked and narrow College Avenue. The first leg of the Red Line would include dedicated bus lanes on which electric buses would run from 66th Street in Broad Ripple to the University of Indianapolis on the South Side. The route would follow College to 38th Street and then Meridian Street and Capitol Street south to downtown. The bus line would follow Virginia Street from downtown to Shelby Street. There would be about 28 stops in all with buses running about every 10 minutes.
Residents in the Broad Ripple area were already fuming over the placement of Blue Indy electric car sharing stations in the busiest areas of College Avenue where parking was already tight. They fear the dedicated bus lane will consume remaining parking that is available on College, further slowing traffic on it to the point motorists will divert to other neighborhood streets to avoid the bottlenecks. The proponents see the cost of the $100 million first phase of the Red Line as a cleaner way of transporting people, lessening dependence on fuel fossils and the supposed problem they pose for global warming, even though global temperatures haven't been rising as predicted. Eventually, the Red Line would extend at least as far north as Carmel and as far south as Greenwood.
According to Tuohy's article, IndyGo anticipates there will be about 11,000 riders daily on the Red Line. One of the opponents of the Red Line route, Brian McGuire, wonders where all those riders are going to be found. "Other than rush hour, that College bus runs empty all day long," McGuire said, adding that expectations of new dwellings to "create ridership" are far-fetched. "Are they going to pull 11,000 riders out of midair?"
It sounds like there is going to be a lot of re-engineering work that will be necessary along the route. There will be boarding platforms much like you have at train stations. The boarding platforms will be placed every one-third to three miles. Some of the platforms planned along College will actually be located in the center lane. Motorists would no longer be able to make left turns at most intersections along the route. Traffic signals will be manipulated to allow the buses to travel through intersections without waits.
City-County Councilor Joe Simpson, whose district the proposed Red Line partially runs, is opposed to the route. "They are going to come in and rearrange our streets for people who are not from Indianapolis," Simpson said. "A few years ago we reconstructed 38th Street. Then we rearrange the streets for all these bike lanes, and now we are going to do it so people from Carmel don't have to drive? The people who live here aren't going to have anywhere to drive their cars anymore. It seems like this is not a benefit to the community." Newly-elected City-County Councilor Colleen Fanning, whose district includes many of the opponents, supports the proposed route. "I truly believe it is a net positive, but if I am wrong, I am flexible," said Fanning, a Republican. "This is not change for change's sake. Not having reliable transportation is holding us back as a city. Change is always scary, but it frustrates me when people form an opinion with incorrect or incomplete information. That's why I am glad we can have a discussion."
If you want to sign an online petition opposing the currently-proposed Red Line, click here.
so we bet on, boats against the current, bourne back ceaselessly into the past
Pete Boggs said...
These hipster statists display a complete lack of vision with their fascist plans to vandalize College Avenue. Their idiotic idea is inorganically design backward; a proposal of arrested development.
Gaudy fits of little brother syndrome do more to vandalize than improve our communities; with misappropriated funds looted from the public treasury. We're not Chicago, we're not Europe- emulate their failed models of statism- why? Wrong way government is not an answer to challenges organically solved by the free market.
The Soviet styled, socialist Repuli-canned, promote the morbid expansion of government as a "solution" to "problems" they contrive; while abandoning all sense of purpose & priority. Play legoland with your own money you statist pigs.
It really is simple math; you can not fit 1000000 people into one phone booth. The same groups of people will become enriched over these Agenda 21 issues. Absolutely nothing like being taxed AGAIN for a mass transit system that will not function.
This is very similar to Car-Mel FORCING citizens to support a specific, privately owned trash collection company and removing freedom of choice from the table. It seems very convenient and trite to site the weight of trash trucks and their travel routes causing road/street destruction for this decision. I guess, cement trucks, gravel trucks, school busses, construction semi's hauling equipment, overloaded semi's traveling Keystone among other "weighty" vehicles are not considered.
Power in Car-Mel corrupts and absolute power, corrupts absolutely. Remember the statement in the movie "National Velvet"? "That'll be a dispute to end of time, Mr. Brown: whether it is better to do the right thing for the wrong reason or the wrong thing for the right reason". A very good man once quoted this to me and added, it is always better to do the right thing, regardless the reason.
The problem isn't the location. The problem is that it was rammed down residents throats without considering their needs or wishes. It's ironic. Indianapolis has more abandonment than just about any American city other than Detroit or St. Louis. This is why. If you already live here, you are treated like dirt, and so you leave. Transit is critical and will be more so in the future. It's a shame that the people ramming this through don't give a hoot about what existing residents think.
The so-called "Red Line" (what's red about it?) is one of the dumbest, most juvenile, most immature, most destructive, most offensive, angriest, most hateful bits of urban destruction I've ever seen.
It's hard to imagine willfully created a dumber idea.
Everyone behind it should be laughed out of town.
Are they demoting College to Commie Avenue or Dumbed Down Drive? Anon 10:25 nails it with juvenile!
No, Pete. You nailed it.
I find this glorification of 1885 ideas passed off as "progress" to be very odd. At least 1885 had streetcars which had a lot of advantages over buses.
The 1970's were better than the 1890's, but there is a group of effetes and Millennials that wants to drag cities back over a century.
The streetcar tracks are still under College Avenue. It would be better to dig up the tracks and have streetcars straight to Downtown over this very stupid zig-zag bus line.
A streetcar line would actually be something to look at. Buses already exist. Nobody uses them now. Nobody will use them when College Avenue is destroyed. Urban Planning used to be a good course of study from the 00's to the 1980's. That major has been taken over by the Marxists who are destroying the urban experience for Agenda 21 anti-urban ideas.
If they want quick travel between Carmel and Downtown, tear out the silly Monon Trail, and use that graded and load-rated railroad bed for commuter rail.
guy77money said...
These buses are electric and do not run on tracks I assume. I am ok with electric buses but why in God's name do you disrupt traffic. Run them like a regular bus build some basic (maybe heated) shelters and run them every ten minutes from 5 AM to 10 AM and then from 3 PM to 7 PM that should cover all of the people that work weird shifts. Then run them every 25 minutes the rest of the time. If the ridership is not there then you basically start adjusting the routes
Once again do not disrupt traffic. They don't do it in Chicago and I have friends who are attorneys that use them everyday. Lastly please police these buses so people feel safe or it is not worth the effort. Why do politicians make everything so damn hard.
"Newly-elected City-County Councilor Colleen Fanning, whose district includes many of the opponents, supports the proposed route. "I truly believe it is a net positive, but if I am wrong, I am flexible," said Fanning, a Republican. "This is not change for change's sake. Not having reliable transportation is holding us back as a city. Change is always scary, but it frustrates me when people form an opinion with incorrect or incomplete information. That's why I am glad we can have a discussion."
Wow. When I read this I read it as: "two faced, double talking, take all sides of an issue bull$h#t".
RINO Republican Colleen Fanning sounds like she's Councilor Jeff Miller in a skirt.
I guess the logic behind this incredibly stupid idea is that a few insiders get $100 million for constructing this albatross and then make another $100 million taking it all back down when it's shown for the folly it really was. By that time,the current brood of urban millennial hipsters will have already headed out of the city back to the suburbs and exurbs where they came from in the first place.
leon dixon said...
"DON'T ASSUME THAT POLICY PROPOSALS MAKE SENSE IN TERMS OF THEIR STATED GOALS. When you're dealing with a revolutionary power, it's important to realize that it knows what it wants, and will make whatever argument advances that goal. So there should be no presumption that the claims it makes on behalf of its actions make any sense in their own terms.....". "....Journalists find it very hard to deal with blatant false arguments; by inclination and training, they always try to see two sides to an issue, and find it hard to even conceive that a major political figure is simply lying....."
A small prize to the reader who can identify the prize winning economist who penned these thoughts so applicable to Indiana, Tully, duh Star and the political figures who think the people are stupid.
This is another statist proposal for inurbane development. Anon 11:35's reference to nostalgia as "progress," exposes their lack of imagination (what no drones?) & economic literacy (everyone else's money except users & real world investors). Some of might prefer quality food service & wifi on a slow moving canal flatboat...
"By that time,the current brood of urban millennial hipsters will have already headed out of the city back to the suburbs and exurbs where they came from in the first place."
Well said, 12:39.
It took me a while to learn that "hipster" was a derogatory term. Decades ago, being "hip" used to be seen as cool, but being a "hipster" is being everything that is uncool, un-fun, effeminate and unintelligent.
IF such a system were right for Indianapolis, a point I don't concede, then the only logical north-south route would be Keystone Avenue, since the goal of a BRT system is to connect people with shopping, jobs and health care. Keystone Avenue has multiple big-box stores, grocery stores, Keystone at the Crossing, Woodfield at the Crossing, and if the line proceeded south to Fall Creek and then turned west on 38th, it would connect to the State Fairgrounds. Keystone already has a median, no parking and would be easier to use, especially north of 82nd Street.
This line would be a disaster for College Avenue. Side streets would see massively increased traffic, especially Central, which would replace College as a major traffic route. This is because Central would have one lane north and south, just like College would be left with, only there wouldn't be left turn restrictions, a median or 256 buses per day, so it would be easier to use. There are 2 schools at 57th & Central, which have many pupils who walk. Increased traffic would place them at risk.
At the end of the day, IndyGo cannot justify this because there simply isn't sufficient interest either in Indianapolis or the suburbs for a bus system. Improving the existing system like Guy 77 suggests, makes more sense.
The thing that makes The Red Line scheme particularly insidious is the way old guard, local, politically connected developers are using non-profits to connect with millennial, hipster, statist architects and activists. This unorthodox alliance of old/young, rich/poor, right/left has left everybody scratching their heads. The non-profit middlemen make the scheme even more confusing. They keep their well-funded propaganda machines churning out progressive, socially conscious, environmentally friendly hogwash. When the smoke clears, I predict you'll be able to follow the money trail (taxpayer money trail) straight into the hands of the same old guard, local, politically-connected developers who always seem to end up with it.
What Keystone needs to to be sunken with interchanges all the way from the 86th St. Crossing to the I-70 on ramp.
"What Keystone needs to to be sunken with interchanges all the way from the 86th St. Crossing to the I-70 on ramp."
In other words, the original I-69. Which was go from present I-69 and I-465 down what is now Binford Blvd to Keystone Ave to join into the North Split... which is why even to this day there's bridges with nothing underneath them at the North Split.
The idea of a referendum for the Red Line was not a local Marion County initiative but was crafted by the State Legislature where HB 1011, sponsored by Jerry Torr(R), was passed by the House and Ways Committee. It was reported that "hundreds of supporters of the bill came from all over the state and drove multiple hours to a Transit Day Rally and cheers were loud when it was announced that the bill had passed". On passage Rep. Torr declared, "I think it is important for future growth in the greater Indianapolis area". I can assure you that the Red Line project is more about economic development outside of Indianapolis at the expense of Marion County taxpayers.
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