Has Indianapolis cracked red state urbanism?

[@Littleweenaman]

I know it’s not a rust belt but I’ve been seeing a lot of industrial cities willing to give urbanism a shot and it’s renewed my hope

[@HeartlandUrbanist]

Exactly. Even if the steps in the right direction are small they are exciting.

[@ThomasJayMeme]

I went to the indy500 last year and was shocked by the great urban bones that Indy clearly has, great to see the city seems to have an even brighter future !

[@Littleweenaman]

I’m sure the city probably had streetcar service in the 1940’s to like a lot of American cities

[@HeartlandUrbanist]

Yep - their streetcar system had over 100M riders in 1920.

[@HeartlandUrbanist]

Totally agree. We really enjoyed our visit. Excited to see what it looks like in 30 years after all these changes.

[@PixelatedLlama]

@@HeartlandUrbanist We also had the country's first union station. The current structure is a couple decades newer than the institution itself - so it's not the oldest still standing union station - but our union station had almost as many people traveling through it every day by train than our airport has traveling through it by plane today.

[@eriklakeland3857]

@@PixelatedLlamaridiculous decision to not build the BRT hub closer to union station in anticipation of future intercity rail improvements. Pan Am Plaza could’ve spared some space. Indy is lucky to have a through-running, downtown train station at its core but squandered some of its potential with the poor placement of the BRT hub.

[@britefeather]

The city only recently started embracing the cultural trail and has a lot more it can do. The original cultural trail project was funded by a charitable foundation without the city's help. Now if we can keep up with getting rid of all this parking and actually get some housing built up.

[@alfredogarbanzo2276]

Wish a lot of people in my small town were on the same page when it came to building strong towns.

[@Littleweenaman]

I think you’d be surprised how many people want a nice place to walk especially the elderly

[@adm1nspotter]

Just the fact that Indiana has made it _illegal_ to build light rail... what the heck?

[@een_schildpad]

This is very disheartening; especially because I think having an express "light rail" connection to it's surrounding cities would be transformative; both for Indy and those communities. Right now, there just literally is no reasonable option to get between them and Indy without a car. It would help so many things: labor shortages, traffic and parking issues, road wear and danger issues.

[@tonywalters7298]

@@een_schildpad The GOP seems to have an irrational hatred of using trains to move people for some reason. At least Indiana does have a bright spot in that they are expanding the South Shore line with a new branch line, double tracking, and eliminating the street running segment through Michigan City, which would help make the service more competitive with driving.

[@PixelatedLlama]

It's worse than that. It's illegal to build light rail in Marion County/Indianapolis and all surrounding counties. There is no ban on light rail in the rest of the state, and The State funded an expansion of light rail from South Bend and Northwest Indiana into Chicago. The "ban" on light rail has to do with one state senator who gets money from a big local car dealership group, and a state legislature that likes to punish Indianapolis for being a blue county in a red state.

[@collintheviking2082]

@@PixelatedLlama I'm pretty sure that same state senator or a different important politician also took money from a group funded by the Koch Brothers called Americans For Prosperity, that was created to specifically target and stop any planned public transit projects in cities across the country. They have done a lot of damage, not just in Indy. They got Phoenix, AZ to stop building their own light rail as well.

[@eriklakeland3857]

@@PixelatedLlamaSenator Aaron Freeman is the worst. His latest stunt of trying to ban Indy from adding more no turn on red restrictions to downtown intersections was infuriating.

[@jamalgibson8139]

I really appreciate you bringing up the health aspect of walkable cities. I wish we could get formal organizations like the surgeon General, or the American pediatric association, or the American heart association to weigh in on the costs of car dependence. I mean, 40k people a year are killed by cars and our major health organizations don't see that as a public health crisis?? It's insane, especially when you consider that car crashes were the leading cause of children deaths for decades.

[@TheOnyxGemini]

Hello, I live in Watertown, MA, a suburb of Boston. I wanted to tell you about the abhorrent transit situation that the nearby city of Lynn has found itself in. The city has been building more densely around its commuter rail station, however, the MBTA has closed the station due to the disrepair of the building, even though it was built in 1991. A new station will not be done until 2030, which is absolutely ridiculous. The city has urged the MBTA to build a temporary platform, which will take 12-18 months. Otherwise, they have to take a shuttle bus to Swampscot for the commuter rail or a shuttle to Revere for the Blue Line, which will take a long amount of time during rush hour. It's ridiculous that Lynn, which is the same distance to Boston and Brooklyn is to Manhattan, has no accessible transit to get to Boston. This is compounded by the fact of the large Latino and Black population in Lynn. This has also caused economic problems as building contractors to have densified around the station will suffer since young commuters will not move in without transit. This has led to a grocery store cancelling its plan to move into one of the buildings. I wanted to spread the news about this. If you want to see the full article, it's in the June 25th Boston Globe written by Joan Vennochi.

[@GaigeGrosskreutzGunClub]

I think the amount of car commuters in MA increased recently, too, despite being the best-decked transit state in New England. It's frustrating being here in RI, the smallest and by some measures, the most dense state in the union that just has a meh bus system. I'm hoping to tap into our inferiority/superiority complex to see what the midwest is doing compared to the "blue" states in the Northeast and hopefully spur the change in transit we so need.

[@oaxtec765]

​@@GaigeGrosskreutzGunClubfellow Ri resident here, and I think they're genuinely is a ton of potential! The 2040 master plan looks really good and would mean Providence would punch well above it's weight. They're clearly is support for improving transit in the state, it's all about fighting the fiscal cliff getting them to actually implement the plan

[@eriklakeland3857]

Absolutely scandalous decision to build the downtown BRT hub so far from Union Station. The underutilized Pan Am Plaza adjacent to Union Station would’ve been perfect for the bus bays, allowing Indy to generate network effects with future intercity rail improvements. The original transit plan framework had Union Station as the bus hub. The Purple Line will share part of its route with the Red Line. That shared section will have really high off peak frequency of buses, making spontaneous, non-commuting trips very convenient. Super exciting. Some members of the state legislature (particularly Aaron Freeman) try to micromanage Indy’s urbanist agenda. From trying to ban the city from adding no turn on red to several downtown intersections, to repeated attempts to kill the BRT plan passed by voters.

[@seantroy3172]

Cool look at what it actually takes to get this done!

[@HeartlandUrbanist]

So glad you got something out of it!

[@MplsTodd]

Indy has an outstanding downtown & several nice near dwtn neighborhoods (Fountain Sq, Fletcher Pl & Mass Ave). While Columbus probably has better neighborhoods overall, dwtn Indy is more interesting than dt Cbus. Good point about Indy’s improvements despite the state. I’m also impressed with how Carmel & Fishers are creating or expanding downtowns in their communities.

[@HeartlandUrbanist]

If Columbus would realize that High St needs to be put on a major road diet - it could have an amazing Cultural Trail-like experience from German Village/Brewery District all the way to Old North Columbus. But I won’t hold my breathe.

[@NealCMH]

Thank you for another good video. I grew up in Indiana and now live in Columbus (OH). I agree with you that Downtown Indy is a great place. I wish I would have ridden the Red Line the last time I was there. I did not know about the 2016 Referendum. It is unfortunate that the Legislature prevented it to be used for Light Rail.

[@jamalgibson8139]

I have to imagine that kind of law is unconstitutional. I mean, how is the legislature even going to enforce that? I wish the mayor would just take that money and tell the state legislature, "good luck enforcing your dumb law." That might even allow it to go to the Supreme Court who may overturn it and all these other dumb state laws limiting transit funding for being dumb.

[@een_schildpad]

So cool to hear about your trip to Indy! Our family loves the Red Line (though it's a bit bumpy like you mentioned 😂). Our kids actually decided riding it was the highlight of our last trip to Indy (winning over the museums we visited and the circle) and they want to go back just to ride it again 🙃. I'm excited to see progress but anxious for it to happen so much faster 😭. Love your videos!!! ❤

[@kyee1713]

I love watching your content highlight the urbanism of cities in the Midwest. I do not want to force you to do anything but I would have a strong suggestion to do some content about Cincinnati sometime. In Cincinnati I would love to get involved. But looking to get involved in urbanism has a lack of connection for people to get educated about it and a lack of accessibility and awareness. I wish I had known about it sooner. I live in Cincinnati and would love more urbanist content about it, good and bad, and showing what things we still need to do as well as what the future may bring. I’ve heard Cincinnati brought up on a few urbanist KZbin channels but never going into full detail and I think Cincinnati has a really cool urbanist history especially with union terminal, street cars, inclines, old bus networks, potential subway project, and other interesting facts. Ofcourse the highways sorta ruined all those aforementioned but that’s why it’s a good history of urbanism. Anyways I would love a video about Cincinnati urbanism. I believe people just need to get out and experience it. Way too few people actually know about the things going on, especially the teens and kids that the future of it all affects.

[@history_leisure]

If things don't improve for the Cardinal, you can have a train to Cincinnati with local (making all stops as long as someone wants to get on/off) and express (likely none or 1 for breakfast) busses to Charlottesville that could meet Regional 151 Eastbound (with almost no time to spare unless this train could have its own schedule), Westbound would need either a new regional between Charlottesville and NYP that arrives around when the Eastbound Cardinal normally would. The second option would be to extend the Pennsylvanian (at least 4/wk) to Cincinnati with local Charlottesville bus + normal throughway and new regional on Cardinal timetable (but NEC passengers might be allowed to travel on it Northeast Corridor depending on usage after a trial period since it is technically the Cardinal and not a regional although it would be classed as such in ticketing)

[@HeartlandUrbanist]

I can't wait for the 3C rail to start and the other Amtrak ConnectsUs expansions.

[@kyee1713]

I would love to see some rail connections from Cincinnati to lots of other cities across the region. That would be awesome.

[@britefeather]

The state killed the Hoosier line (daily service between Indianapolis and Chicago) because it "cost too much $3 million a year" yet they are adding lanes to so many highways like crazy and investing lots into sprawl. The few miles of I69 alone is being funded by over $500 million from the state let alone federal. Enough that could have gone to the Hoosier State line for 166 years. The state hates rail.

[@waynecopple385]

Chicago to Indianapolis is about 200 miles, a bit over 300 to Cincinnati. Amtrak service is currently three times a week in each direction. The train averages under 40 mph Chicago to Indianapolis. The Indianapolis to Cincinnati segment is even worse. This would be an ideal corridor for high speed rail. However, you don't even need HSR to make this into a viable corridor. The New York Central ran the route in five and a half hours. Replicate that with decent frequencies and rail travel would be an attractive option. As of now however, my impression is that Indiana state government is totally uninterested in intercity rail passenger service.

[@eriklakeland3857]

Not Indianapolis, but a rail project in Indiana that has caught my eye is Chicago-Fort Wayne, IN-Lima, OH-Columbus. Due to lack of a direct highway alternative, a passenger train could outcompete driving times fairly easily and utterly destroy them if it ran 110mph or so (the fastest of the options studied irrc)

[@britefeather]

Amtrak already had a plan to shave off 15 minutes of travel time from the original trip let alone bigger projects before the state decided it would rather spend over $500 million on a few miles of interstate than $3 million a year to maintain daily service to Chicago.

[@simonpusateri3527]

Hoping that the COTA BRT can be implemented this successfully!

[@HeartlandUrbanist]

Tell me about it! I plan to do what I can to help advocate.