Commuter Rail - Indianapolis?

Folks, don't get me wrong, Indianapolis is a great city, I have wonderful long time friends who reside there, and it is always a pleasure to go down (by auto) and visit. The Downtown is always alive with vitality, the Veteran's Square decorated at Xmas is a joy to see, and the Indianapolis Symphony approaches "world class'.

But with all of that having been said, Indy is not a "mass transit town". The municipal bus system does not extend beyond the I-465 "bypass" to the North.

Yet, here we go with a proposal for rail commuter service connecting downtown with Noblesville and Fishers - two growing communities to the North.

"Read all about it"; as likely this will be the last you hear of it:

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /805210509

Personally, though I'd like to see public transit expanded in all cities in general, I'd rather see the residents of the Indianapolis area better patronize their existing bus system before they start spending serious money on commuter rail.

From looking at the statistics on the APTA.com website a couple months ago, I think Chicago has as many transit riders in 2 or 3 days as Indianapolis has in a year.

I felt Indy was more booming downtown than cleveland and st louis and Kansas city. I feel this city deserves light rail

As a guy that knows the city well, I have to say tearing up the Monon was a poor idea. There is quite a lot of affluent suburbs along the route (Carmel, Broadripple) and the connection made downtown (torn out 1978) to INRD (former ICG) would have made a nice route that would leave town to the south and lead to Bloomington, home of IU. But we're in a state with crummy 403b programs, so I don't have hope for much in the way of Indianapolis passenger trains other than the little Zoo train...

Parents lived in Indy 60s-80s. I went to IU. Indy, at one time, had a great commuter system.........interurbans and trolleys!! One of the finest in the nation.

My late father, a published railroad historian, lobbied in the late 60s early 70s for using the Monon, NKP, IC, and even the NYC and PRR ROWs for 'future transit' to be railbanked. Gasoline was 39c a gallon, fell on deaf ears. I do remember, however, that in those days the Monon was used for State Fair trains and shuttles to/from downtown, and even some PV showed up.

CHIP72 wrote:Personally, though I'd like to see public transit expanded in all cities in general, I'd rather see the residents of the Indianapolis area better patronize their existing bus system before they start spending serious money on commuter rail.

From looking at the statistics on the APTA.com website a couple months ago, I think Chicago has as many transit riders in 2 or 3 days as Indianapolis has in a year.

People who will ride a light rail or commuter rail service probably won't ride a bus. That's like Burger King saying, "We won't serve double whoppers until people start eating more fries."

Years ago National Cities Lines proved that. They bought streetcar lines and ran them into the ground. Then they promissed modern busses. Ya know what they figured out? Not only could they sell busses, rubber and fuel to the city bus line, most riders would buy a new car.

Mitch wrote:

CHIP72 wrote:Personally, though I'd like to see public transit expanded in all cities in general, I'd rather see the residents of the Indianapolis area better patronize their existing bus system before they start spending serious money on commuter rail.

From looking at the statistics on the APTA.com website a couple months ago, I think Chicago has as many transit riders in 2 or 3 days as Indianapolis has in a year.

People who will ride a light rail or commuter rail service probably won't ride a bus. That's like Burger King saying, "We won't serve double whoppers until people start eating more fries."

Years ago National Cities Lines proved that. They bought streetcar lines and ran them into the ground. Then they promissed modern busses. Ya know what they figured out? Not only could they sell busses, rubber and fuel to the city bus line, most riders would buy a new car.

I'm sure the above is true; actually I've observed this kind of thing living in the DC area, in an area that has direct service to/from downtown via both heavy rail and two major local bus lines (all 3 of which are heavily patronized but do not appear to have a high number of overlapping/dual riders from my observations). Regardless, if people in an area do not show a willingness to use bus public transit, how can you justify spending millions and millions of dollars building a light rail or commuter rail system that people might use? I suppose one could argue that building a rail line encourages overall transit use, which increases not only rail ridership but also bus ridership (and I think this has/will happen...to a degree), but when the existing bus ridership is as low as it is in Indianapolis (and it is absurdly low), it is a very hard sell in my eyes.