Transportation in Indianapolis - Transportation Issues

Transportation Issues

Although Indianapolis has managed to sustain a relatively low amount of traffic congestion for a city of its population, this is mostly because the city covers 365 square miles (950 km2), an area much larger than most cities with roughly 785,000 people. Indianapolis's low population density might also be the reason the city has yet to further develop its mass transit bus system or a heavy or light rail network. Among urbanized areas with 1,000,000 population or greater in the United States, Indianapolis ranked tenth in freeway lane miles per 1,000 population and eighth in freeway-equivalent miles per 1,000 population.

As the 13th-largest city in the U.S., Indianapolis has repeatedly been ranked below 40th in mass transit availability. However at recent city, county, metropolitan, and state-wide meetings, the idea of a heavy rail transportation service has been seriously considered. It would be a four rail system originating at downtown and stretching north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest to the city's suburban areas. The system would be called IndyGo.

Some complaints include:

• the bus-only city mass transit system; the absence of rapid transit and light rail.
• the undue emphasis on automobile travel in city planning; the lack of sidewalks and bike paths.
• excessive automobile usage resulting in environmental degradation (specifically air pollution), as evidenced in the city's often poor air quality
• the lack of cross-town bus routes, forcing bus riders to travel downtown to cross from one side of the city to another, often doubling or tripling what the trip distance would have been with a direct route.
• the "lack of vision" in building a transportation network based entirely on non-renewable resources and old technology
• the paucity of scheduled bus routes, often forcing riders to choose between arriving at a destination extremely early, or late.
• the lack of night bus services, which forces those who work late shifts to find other ways to get around. These can be much more expensive.
• the fiscal costs of building (for instance liens), repairing, and replacing roads

There are other concerns over a lack of safe walking paths in many areas of the city. Many suburbs which were incorporated in the 1960s and 1970s are now relatively near the center of the city, and don’t have sidewalks. This often forces pedestrians to navigate a narrow road shoulder near high-speed automobile traffic.