Indianapolis Northeast Corridor - Light Rail

Over the years there have been several proposals for major transit improvements in Indianapolis. Rarely did these go beyond the very preliminary study phase. But several recent developments have converged to really make key decision makers take a look at transit as a transportation alternative, particularly light rail in the Northeast Corridor. Some of these are:

• Increasing congestion in the Northeast Corridor. Indianapolis has seen dramatic increases in traffic volume over the last 15 years. In the past, it was absorbed by excess road capacity. Now that capacity is exhausted and legitimate congestion - almost unknown in Indianapolis - has begun to appear in the form of dead stopped interstate traffic and lengthly delays at key surface street intersections.

• There is extremely low unemployment in the metro area, particularly on the affluent northside, and particularly for lower paying service jobs in retail. Yet persistent unemployment continues in the inner city. There is a realization that no amount of road building will link suburban jobs with the inner city unemployed when those inner city residents don't own cars.

• Norfolk Southern abandoned the former Nickel Plate railroad stretching from Tipton to 10th St. in Indianapolis and sold the right of way to the new Hoosier Heritage Port Authority formed by Fishers and Noblesville. (The purchase price was a mere $1 million, with 80% paid for by the federal government - a real bargain). This line provides a direct route to downtown from the booming northeast suburbs, something that no freeway provides due to the cancellation of the I-165 project. (Freight traffic continues to be provided by the Indiana Rail Road (a short line) on a contract rather than common carrier basis and the Indiana Transportation Museum runs the State Fair train and various excursion trips on this route. Whether this constitutes rail activity for the purposes of determining whether or not right of way granted by easement should revert to adjacent landowners has not been tested in court).

• The I-69/SR 37 corridor study mentioned above showed a massive expansion of freeways would be needed to keep congestion at bay. An expansion that would require a large number of residential demolitions. Plus, when the dust settled from the various northside traffic studies, it was clear that expanding roads to completely deal with congestion was not financially feasible. At the same time, Congress was appropriating billions in New Start transit funds for light rail systems.

So in 1997 INDOT hired Parsons, Brinckerhoff (the largest engineering firm in the US) to conduct a feasibility study of transit in the northeast corridor. This study showed that there could be better benefit/cost from either a light rail improvement or dedicated busway improvement in the northeast corridor over roadway expansion. This study's results contrast with the long range plan study that examined a four quandrant light rail system that was found not to be cost justified. (Actually, the PB study was really a "meta-study" that simply re-examined data previously gathered).

The completed feasibility study listed three primary transit alternatives:

• Dedicated busway in the median of SR 37, extending along the railroad right of way from the Fairgrounds to downtown.
• Light rail on the railroad ROW from Noblesville to Union Station. This would require a new bridge over 10th St. and additional track construction to reach Union Station since both Conrail and CSX have flat out refused any discussions of any passenger rail service on their mainline through downtown.
• Light rail on the railroad ROW from Noblesville from Noblesville to 38th St., at which point the line would become a streetcar service along 38th west, then proceeding to/from downtown along the Capitol/Illinois one way pair, turning east on South St., and merging with the Conrail Louisville Secondary south to the Lilly campus.

Armed with that study, local officials went to Congress seeking funding for a new Major Investment Study of transit and roadway improvmenets in the Northeast Corridor. Some federal funding was forthcoming and a bid was put out for a combination MIS/environment study called Connections. Projected to take approximately 18 months, but ran far longer than that.

The Connections study examined both light rail and highway expansion options. Rumor has it that as the data came in, most members of the study oversight committe didn't believe light rail was a good idea. Efforts to drum up support for an ongoing source of local funding for a light rail system met with very dubious reactions. The Indianapolis City Council voted down a proposal to create a multi-county Regional Transit Authority. The new mayor Bart Peterson seems very skeptical about light rail. Largely on his recommendation, highway expansion was approved out of the Connections study, and light rail was remanded for further study. Ostensibly this is because Peterson wants to examine a true light rail network, with legs going west to the airport and south to Greenwood. But the effect of this decision has been to deal a serious blow to any near term possibility of light rail in Indianapolis.

The TEA-21 bill in Congress authorized $10 million in earmarks for Indianapolis light rail, but right now there is no where to spend it.

In my last update I wrote:

My guy feel is that the Connections study will recommend both a light rail and a highway option, but that the light rail idea will eventually stagnate and die.

I think this is pretty close to what happened and I do think the light rail idea is going to whither away, as it seems to be doing in many places throughout the country. Looking back, it could be that light rail was simply a planning fad of the 90's.

Last Update: March 2002

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