Did Transit even have a chance?
Dear Indiana lawmakers, I hope that you are enjoying a brief respite from the short session and taking in what our fine capital city has to offer. The Super Bowl is here this week and our city is displaying the fruits of 40 years of effort to revitalize the city’s core, and indeed primary economic engine of our entire state. Thousands of people from the region and in fact the entire country, have descended on our city to work, play and spend money. It represents a coming of age for a town that was pretty sleepy when most of you were growing through your impressionable years. I suppose that makes a lot of sense now when I look back at the last month of legislation and how it was handled. By that, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Transit
Immediate Threat to Bike/Ped Funding
We are in a crisis as far as transportation infrastructure goes. The nation and individual states have heavily over-invested in single user roadways and highways that they can no longer afford. The continued push by some lawmakers has been to try and remove dedicated cycling and pedestrian funding from the transportation bill. Members of the House are currently drafting a bill to eliminate programs such as Safe Routes to School and Bike/Ped positions in state DOTs. This is an urgent request to email your representative and let them know, Bike/Ped infrastructure isn’t a desire, it is a basic need and a logical way to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil, the auto and expensive infrastructure! http://www.capwiz.com/lab/issues/alert/?alertid=60927571&PROCESS=Take+Action … Read entire article »
Filed under: Bicycling, Featured, Pedestrian, Transit
HB1073 falls in committee but still not dead
HB1073 (Public Mass Transit) was dealt a heavy blow today when it went down 10-11 in the House Ways & Means committee this morning. Partisan bickering erupted early on with Representative Crawford singling out the labor language in the bill. Jeff Espich, committee Chairman, pointed out that he had stripped half of the labor related language out but it appeared the Democrats on the committee were not going to budge and continued to vote no. To … Read entire article »
We could Solve this thing over Dinner
I don’t think that it is a secret to any Urban Indy writer or reader that I have invested A LOT of personal (and family) time over the last 3 years taking photos, writing, travelling to various cities with better transit systems including Portland, DC, Charlotte and Chicago and dragging my family along the way for “another one of dad’s transit trips!”. Full disclosure, my family has also had the privilege of hosting regional transit officials of the highest order over delicious meals prepared by my wife which include but are not limited to lasagna, pasta and with plenty of red wine, and local beer. I would like to think that the Urban Indy group has had a pretty good say in what has become Indy Connect. While we are not 100% … Read entire article »
Buses-N-Beers
On Saturday, January 21st, join Urban Indy bloggers Saturday Graeme Sharpe, Joe Smoker, and I for a one-of-a-kind excursion to promote Mass Transit and responsible beer tasting (ok, so there will be some beer drinking, not just tasting) in advance of the upcoming Super Bowl. IndyGo is FREE during Super Bowl weekend, so this is intended to be a bit of a guide for guests, as well as a promotion of local businesses in some of our favorite Indianapolis neighborhoods. And as far as this Saturday is concerned, Graeme has a few free bus passes for the first few people to show up at Twenty Tap. Here is our very simple schedule: Around 4 PM, meet at Twenty Tap at 54th and College. Wait outside for the IndyGo Bus 17 at either 5:10 or … Read entire article »
Filed under: Pedestrian, Transit
HB1073 call to action!
This was sent to us from the leaders of the transition coalition: Thank for you for signing the petition to support transit funding in Indiana. The House Ways and Means Committee is considering HB 1073 which would: 1. A method for the public to express their support for transit funding through a referendum; 2. Local Home Rule, the role of local government to make decisions in the best interests of the people it serves; 3. A method to partially fund mass transit through the flexibility to increase a local option income tax to become a dedicated funding source. We contacted you in November to let you know there will be calls to act and contact Indiana legislators. This is our first call to action! We need your help NOW! There are two preferred ways … Read entire article »
HB1073 – transit – Gets its day at the Indiana Statehouse
HB1073 (click to see official bill) is the initial volley by the Central Indiana Transit Task Force to state lawmakers. The summary of the bill is as follows: Public mass transportation. Specifies that a county or city council (other than the city-county council of Marion County) may elect by ordinance to provide revenue to a public transportation corporation from the city’s or the county’s distributive share of county adjusted gross income taxes, county option income taxes, or county economic … Read entire article »
Highlighting Indy’s “Bus Plan”
A great bus plan was released to the citizens of Indianapolis on December 13th 2011. This plan proposes double the service over existing IndyGo bus service, identifies rapid transit corridors in the form of BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) and also spells out a future for a dependable bus service for the city of Indianapolis as well as Carmel. However, if you were only a casual Indianapolis area resident, you may not know this. Since the release of the final … Read entire article »
Indianapolis Regional Transit Plan heads to the Statehouse
Today, the final Indyconnect plan was released for public review. The plan released today, is the plan that officials will be taking with them when they go to the statehouse in the 2012 short session. Included in this plan are pieces of the former two releases but with some notable changes. Chief among those changes, are the finalized proposal to include only Marion and Hamilton Counties in the initial phase. The NE Corridor, already under study, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Bicycling, Featured, Pedestrian, Transit
P.U.P.’s IndyGo Bus Stop Update
The first Bush Stadium seats have been installed at the corner of Alabama and Vermont Streets. The official unveiling was took place at 10:00, and I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the event. I chatted with Michael and Jessica Bricker from People for Urban Progress, as well as Bryan Luellen, Annette Darrow, Jessica Mitchell, and Samantha Cross from IndyGo in the hopes of finding out some more information about the project. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————- Urban Indy: … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, New Development, Transit
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