Initially, I was inclined to comment on the post in terms of cities and urban life. However, on reflection, Indianapolis appears to be, not a city, but a state capital surrounded by prosperous suburbs. Indeed, this appears to have been the meaning of the Unigov development effectively putting control of the “city” in the hands of suburban voters.

So we have the appearance that the Urbanophile appears to live in a “city” that largely consists of suburbs, and perhaps unsurprisingly believes the key to developing downtown is to provide lots of parking.

Perhaps this is understandable, considering there are no edges to the city and no apparent reason to live there aside from making a living and having dinner. There are no sharp geographical constraints, such as those that constrict NY, SF, Portland, Seattle, or even, by comparison with Indianapolis, Chicago. There is no worldly flow of goods and people such as we see in our major ports. There are no overwhelming views establishing edges, such as the mountains seen from Seattle and Portland, or a center, such as the view of Chicago or NY.

In fact, for the average resident of Indianapolis, there would appear to be no reason to do anything at all for the “city”. The only thing that distinguishes it from anywhere else is the fact that there is nothing that distinguishes it from anywhere else, and that surely is a quality which might be easily discounted if circumstances dictated a move.

To be sure, there appear to be some visionary businessmen who dream of a streetcar and vital urban core type stuff. However, state capitals are usually pretty good at preventing vital urbanity, for a variety of reasons, and they usually get a little help from nearby vital urbanity that doesn’t want competition.

So, on the balance, I think the Urbanophile got it about right- Indianapolis is a nice suburban area with a current use and historical memory centered on the automobile, and, to the extent that suburbs remain viable, Indianapolis will continue to be a nice suburban area, without rail transit, smart growth, and new urbanism. All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

As I said, this is all very much different from how we think about these things in the PNW.

I always thought light rail for metro Indy would be great, but I must reluctantly agree with this excellent post. Getting people to downtown would be one thing. But what about, say, someone who wants to get off in Castleton and shop? How is that person getting to the mall from the train?

Even in Chicago, public transit has its limits. Having all the rail lines meet downtown is great, but more jobs are moving to the suburbs, and not necessarily close to train lines. Rail is great for me because I live only a few miles from a Metra stop and work at a building right by a El Red Line stop, so train transportation makes sense. If I had to go suburb-to-suburb, it has to be a car. Yeah, there’s a suburban bus system, but that’s great only if you have no other option because you’ll take three times as long to get there.

Plus, on the city bus line, cuts upon cuts have been made for years, reflecting population changes yes, but also the never-ending budget woes of a bloated bureaucracy.

The express-bus idea sounds great, but I suspect it would be used less by Carmelites headed downtown then by low-wage workers heading the other direction. Not a problem, as long as those are the expectations. A larger system of express buses from hub to hub might be a good solution. Why not give local buses shorter routes to go a hub location, rather than a long, local route? I don’t know if that would work, but maybe a version of the airlines’ hub-and-spoke system could make public bus transportation more workable in a spread-out city like Indianapolis.

If there IS a place for rail to work in Indianapolis, it would be downtown. It’s already fairly dense — one of the appeals for conventions and sports events is that you can walk to most everywhere you need to. But what about if you’re around the Circle and want to get to Mass Ave? Or the zoo? Or IUPUI? Or the new Colts’ stadium?

Maybe a people-mover system like Clarian built could work. That way, nobody has to drive from destination to destination, so it makes the downtown area more accessible.

On a grand scale, Indianapolis’ development pattern is (finally) beginning to mimic older and larger US cities: a gold-plated core, with a decaying “donut” of inner-ring suburbs around it, with fringe/exurban gold-plated suburbs.

Yet there are only about 100,000 jobs downtown, in a metro area of almost 1.6 million. That seems to suggest Indy’s jobs are pretty well dispersed.

There is an excellent book on historical development patterns called “City: Urbanism and its End” by Douglas Rae which I would recommend to all here. It is fairly critical of planner-directed grand-scheme “urban renewal” from its origins in the 50s right up to today.

Economics and millions of personal choices have led us to where we are today, and only economics and millions more personal decisions will lead us to the future, whatever that is.

Planned societies, such as Portland, often collapse under the weight of mistaken assumptions. An “urban growth limit” will ALWAYS drive up real estate values and crowd out affordable (in the economic sense, not in the HUD sense) housing options.

I agree that a single light rail line in the Northeast Corridor is a bad idea. I think a much better idea is to start using rail in the urban core to provide a better experience for the tourists and conventioneers that we attract, as well as for those with multiple activities downtown: homes, jobs, school at IUPUI, etc.

A limited downtown streetcar system, in tandem with the Airport Express bus, would first have an identifiable market (and provide a marketable advantage for the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Indianapolis Downtown, Inc.).

If a downtown streetcar system later tied in a significant number of local job and activity drivers (IUPUI and the health complexes, the central business district, Ivy Tech, Children’s Museum and both Lilly clusters) then eventually a radial bus rapid transit system served by a central station would make sense.

Over the long term (10-25 years), high-ridership bus lines could be considered for rail extensions but not before a “transit culture” change takes effect.

It seems that the biggest disagreement on this blog is whether to force that change abruptly because planners know best, or to allow the free market to drive the change (perhaps with some clever economic incentives).

I think I ride with the economists on this one. Pull change, don’t push it.

As for the points made, one can make a counter argument for each and every single one:

1. This argument assumes that only one transit line will be built. As more and more transit lines are built and come on line, the network effect takes place. With increased transit funding (and the current thought in Washington DC is turning this way), more and more people will be able to utilize a wide range transportation network. It takes political will to build the first transit line, but once it starts, demand will rise in other parts of the city for one in their area. Salt Lake City, Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis are a few such examples

2. Cities should be built for people not for cars. Indianapolis will benefit greatly, from aesthetics to public health, once human scaled development makes a come back through increased transit investment.

3. Parking is always a main issue in car oriented cities. One of the reason why companies leave downtowns is because of employee concerns about paying for parking. Why stay downtown when you can just build a new site with free and plentiful parking? Transit helps to take care of this problem by bringing many workers into a concentrated site for business. Granted, there are other considerations for business retention, but transit is one of the key items.

Also, with Indiana’s obesity rate, more people walking is a good thing and transit will help make walking a necessary part in people’s lives.

4. Political will can certainly change, and a good PR effort can help rectify this issue, if it is indeed an issue. Bart Peterson showed signs that he was going to move on public transit, and even if there are questions about the current mayor, I’m sure future mayors will move on this issue, especially if the transit push in Washington is successful.

5. So the logic here is that we shouldn’t do rail transit because it will make areas with transit more attractive and increase property values? The city needs an increased and prosperous tax base to help lift up low income areas through re-investment and/or other types of public investment.

6. Chicago is a world class city while Indianapolis is working towards it. Chicago would not be a great city without its public transit infrastructure (rail and bus working in tandem) and to begrudge a city because it has public transit and not at all auto oriented is myopic.

7. Buses should definitely be part of any public transportation infrastructure, but why limit a city to just this one type though? Buses are cost effective in some areas and rail are cost effective in others. Both should work together to make an area more human oriented.

Also, rail triggers more wide ranging TOD because people perceive it as more permanent. When promoting a product – in this case, public transit, perception is very important.

Finally, buses carry a negative stigma with it that rail does not. You shouldn’t fall into the logical fallacy that bus and rail attractiveness are equal and attract the same amount of people through commensurate funding increases. Moreover, to help change people’s behavior in a car oriented city, it requires big plans that can turn heads and make it socially acceptable to ride public transit. Remember the old adage, “make no small plans.”

8. That is why we want to change cities to become more people oriented and not reflexively accommodate cars. Besides, taking people out of single occupancy cars into public transit like rail and bus will help reduce our energy needs and help combat global climate change. With public transit, people’s lives will improve because the cities they will live in will become car optional instead of car dependent.