 When does perception become reality? When a preconceived notion trumps all logic and becomes the first thought associated with a specific topic. Why is it then, that “light rail” seems to be the favored quarter when it comes to alternative transportation modes?  Last week, I tackled the first half of why we perceive light rail to be …
Indiana House Bill 1354 was read on January 18th 2011. The bill as proposed would require INDOT to include “complete streets” guidelines into INDOT’s approved design manual. A summary of the bill, along with it’s travel through the legislature, can be read here. When I first read about this, I pumped my fist in the …
As I have posted about before, the Indianapolis MPO is in charge of transportation planning in our region. Their governing region extends into other counties around the region. A federally mandated charge of theirs, is to keep a long range plan on hand that fiscally constrains our region’s transportation expansion over a 20 to 25 …
Last week, I profiled 22nd Street and how the surrounding neighborhood is poised to benefit from the controversial NE Corridor line in Indianapolis planned in the Indyconnect proposal. This week, I will focus on the neighborhood roughly centered at 71st Street & Binford Blvd; the second area in my series of nodes along the line that fall within …
 This morning I woke up, and there was a wonderful link sitting in my email inbox. It was a link to the Overhead Wire, and an outside analysis by them of the Indyconnect plan. The Overhead Wire specifically took on the NE Corridor and compared it to the Capital Metrorail in Austin, TX. In their …
Over the next five weeks I will profile 5 possible neighborhoods poised to benefit from the controversial NE Corridor line in Indianapolis that fall within the Marion County portion of the line. Â The corridor in focus is one proposed by Indyconnect, and would originate at Union Station in downtown Indy, and terminate in downtown Noblesville, …
Recently, the Indianapolis MPO released a report (click to open 33 page .pdf) created to examine the spaghetti bowl of freight train traffic that comes and goes in the Indianapolis region. While this wasn’t a point of major debate through out the Indyconnect meeting periods, it bares a lot of responsibility when it comes to firming up the …
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 …
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 …
In this editorial in the Indy Star, there is a mention of in-street light rail along Washington Street, which prompted me to ponder the difference between in-street light rail and streetcars. I did a bit of research on the issue to see if I could clear this up. I have to mention that I used …