Facing the Future

by
Aaron M. Renn
arenn@urbanophile.com
September 1997

Think Castleton traffic is bad now? Just wait a few years. Between now and 2020, the population in the Indianapolis area is expected to grow by about 27%. But the amount of time spent driving is expected to grow by 77%. It does not take much of a genius to figure out that things are going to get worse. A lot worse.

But at the same time congestion is projected to spiral out of control, there is not nearly enough money availble to fix the problems by widening roads. This is due to federal budget pressure plus the fact that Indiana is a donor state which gets back far less in federal road funding than it sends to Washington in gas taxes every year combined with the fact that within Indiana, the Indianapolis area receives less than its fair share of funds.^[1] But it is also due to the extremely high cost of widening roads in already built up areas and the backlog of projects needed just to repair the roads we already have.

Altogether, the Indianapolis Long Rang Transportation Plan (LRP) shows that there is a $1.4 billion shortfall in highway funds for Central Indiana. If that number isn't high enough for you, consider that it does not include any money for a lot of projects that have been proposed such as a US 31 freeway or an Indianapolis to Evansville I-69 extension. Oh, and it is not include any money to improve transit service (for example, by building a light rail line) either. Add in these projects and the funding shortfall could easily rise to $2-3 billion.

Not only is there no realistically fundable way to build our way out of the terrible traffic mess we are heading towards, many people are starting to question the endless suburban sprawl that is a major cause of our problems. The further out people live, the futher people have to drive - and the more congested our roads become. The environmental damage from this congestion is substantial. While our region currently meets federal air quality standards, it does not meet new standards that go into effect soon. Also, suburban spawl is causing farmland in Central Indiana to be lost at an alarming rate.

Suburban sprawl also has high social costs. The population loss in inner city Indianapolis has been staggering over the last forty years. Many neighborhoods are now filled with poor people or with highly segragated and isolated minority communities. Jobs in the suburbs go unfilled for lack of workers while unemployment in many city neighborhoods remains stubbornly high. Indianapolis Public Schools struggles to cut costs by closing schools at the same time suburban districts are borrowing tens of millions of dollars to build new ones.

These types of problems have prompted many people to ask some pointed questions about what our region should be doing about transportation and land use. Questions like:

How do we maintain the high quality of life that makes this region so attractive in the face of rising congestion and commuting misery?
What can we realistically do to reduce traffic congestion when our budget is so constrained?
Should we keep building new subdivisions on the suburban fringes? If so, who will pay for the new schools, roads, sewers, and other city services that new residents will need?
How do we link up the inner city unemployed and welfare recipient with jobs in the suburbs when many people don't have cars?

A new study underway will attempt to answer these questions and many more. This study is called the Central Indiana Transportation Vision and Service Plan. It is being led by the well known national engineering firm Parsons, Brinckerhoff and a team of local people including highway and transit officials, environmental groups, and citizen organizations.^[2] They are chartered with devising an overall strategy for the future of the region's transportation network and land use policy.^[3]

This study group is taking stock of the problems facing our region and looking for possible strategies to deal with them. This includes doing something that Hoosiers are not particularly noted for - namely looking at what other people have done and are doing. On tap are studies of, for example, Portland and St. Louis. The study team is also surveying local officials to get their input. This input will not only be used to generate ideas, but to get a sense of how realistic certain proposals might be. It is important that the recommendation not just be a conglomeration of other cities' ideas, but rather a set of strategies that speak to the specific problems of Indianapolis and its unique cultural, political, and physical environment.

What will be the result? Nobody knows. The study will not be complete for at least another year. But your input is certainly welcome. The study group is conducting several series of public meetings in all nine Indianapolis metro area counties. These are to both gather ideas and to see what the public thinks of various proposals. In the event you cannot attend such a meeting, you can email your comments to the study group at circl@circl.org

A Regional Analysis of Proposed INDOT Highway Expansion Projects

Endnotes

[1] See the Related Papers section for some details on this.

[2] I am a member of the steering committee for this study, but have no involvement in its day to day activities.

[3] A full discussion of the relationship between land use and transportation is beyond the scope of this paper. However, there are those who will argue that transportation and land use are in fact one and the same.

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