Tag «NE Corridor»

Sears at Castleton Closes: How to Rethink the Space Amidst the Retail Apocalypse

We knew it was going to happen eventually.   Sears Holdings Company recently announced the latest wave of closures for its two flagship department stores—Sears and Kmart—and they did not spare metro Indy from the chopping block. This time around, the Sears is closing at Castleton Square Mall, the largest and, in most regards, the …

FTA Awards $2 Million to Indy for BRT Planning

Indyconnect Adopted Plan (November 2010)

  On October 17th, 2011, the FTA awarded Indianapolis $2 million to conduct an alternatives analysis on what is termed, “Central Corridors”. (click here for the official FTA press release in .PDF format) This is direct from last year’s adopted Indyconnect plan that laid out future BRT lines along Washington Street east & west as …

Regional Transit and the Trip Not Taken

Portand MAX Light Rail at the airport (image credit: me)

The past year and some change has been an exciting time for transit in Indianapolis. I feel like we may be moving from the decades of study, study, study to something actually taking place. Proof of that is the current undertaking of the NE Corridor AA/EIS which is also accompanied by a land use study …

Join the Central Indiana Transit Movement

Last week, CIRTA went public with it’s message focused on building a coalition of transit supporters. The effort includes a spot on their website to sign your name to a petition as well as a means of organizations crafting a resolution of support for dedicated transit funding in the upcoming 2012 Legislative Session. As I …

The Future of Transit in Central Indiana

Could Light Rail someday look like this on Washington St?

When Indyconnect unveiled its first proposal for a long range transit plan for the Indianapolis region (February 2010), many people were happy about what had been included in the plan.Transit backers were thrilled that light rail transit was planned along Washington Street from the airport to the east side. Finally, vocal advocates (myself included) had something …

Indianapolis MPO releases Transit Vision Document

Streetcar on Mass Ave (image source: MPO study)

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 …

NE Corridor Opportunities Pt 2 – 71st & Binford

Pedestrian Gathering Space @ 71st & Graham (image source: MPO report)

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 …

Indyconnect – An outside opinion

Austin Commuter Rail, Photo Credit: Kelly West - American Statesman

  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 …

NE Corridor Opportunities Pt 1 – 22nd Street

A vision of revitalization w/ Transit (image source: Smart Growth Indy)

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.  The corridor in focus is one proposed by Indyconnect, and would originate at Union Station in downtown Indy, and terminate in downtown Noblesville, …

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 …