Category «Transit»

Late hour deal saves Indianapolis commuter bus service

Miller Trailway's Bus used for the commuter service

By now, if you follow such things, you should have heard that a late hour deal has been struck to save the commuter bus service formerly known as the IndyGO I.C.E. Commuter Bus. The deal, will preserve service for the Fishers & Carmel service which transports commuters multiple times in the mornings and evenings from …

Could a new People Mover Station spur development?

View under the tracks at 16th Street crossing

The Clarian People Mover in Indianapolis is a privately owned and operated elevated fixed guideway transit structure. It closely resembles a “monorail” but in fact is not. It was built with the purpose of connecting medical facilities in downtown Indianapolis’ NW medical district.  It connects Methodist hospital on it’s north station, with the IU Medical complex …

Indiana receives HSR money

A BNSF freight train that uses the Porter corridor

Although not Urban Indianapolis in nature, news came yesterday that the US DOT had taken back the $1.2 billion awarded to Wisconsin and Ohio earlier this year, and redistributed it to 13 states. The biggest benefactor’s of this money are California and Florida both of whom have robust and TRUE high speed rail programs coming close to …

Why investment in transit is important for Indianapolis

IndyGO Bus on westside of DT

If you are a regular visitor to this site, then you are undoubtedly familiar with our complete and undivided support for improvements to our region’s transit system. Sure, we all have specific talking points that we feel would represent SMARTER choices, but at the heart is this unifying vision of improved transit options. As advocates, …

Envision Union Station

Union Station Headhouse (image credit: Curt Ailes)

Last week, I was asked to speak at an Envision Broad Ripple (EBR) meeting. EBR, is a community effort being put forth to change the future of Broad Ripple’s built environment. They are looking at an entirely new zoning structure, and it will be based upon a vision now being developed by community leaders, as well …

What Indiana spends on its roads

Reconstruction of 465 on Indy's NS (Winter 2009/2010)

In light of my recent posts about Indyconnect gutting the light rail portion of the plan for Marion County, I thought it would be a good time to put some of this financial talk in context by displaying what some recent, and ongoing, roads projects in the Indianapolis area are costing us. This is a partial …

Washington Street BRT Under the Microscope

Phoenix, AZ and it's median LRT (photo: Flickr user CWaterhouse)

Last night I had the opportunity to finally attend one of the Indyconnect Round 2 meetings. It was a little different from the Round 1 meetings, in that it was more of a community meeting where one could sign up to stand and comment or ask questions. I was near the end of the roughly …

Fun for Friday: American Bus Stories

This post is meant to be a companion piece to my German Train story that I posted in January. Traveling by bus in America can lead to some interesting stories.  I’ve only ridden a Greyhound on one occasion, back in the year 2000, which was a round trip to Pittsburgh.   The trip eastward boarded around …

BRT and what it might look like in Indy

BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) Proposed Routes (click to enlarge)

Since the unveiling of Indyconnect’s long term proposal on Monday November 8th, those of us who were advocating AND EXPECTING light rail transit, are left to pick up the pieces. What we had been hoping for was light rail transit that would be implimented along Washington Street. Traditionally, light rail has been a GREAT motivator …