David Hoppe

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:: We can afford public transit

We choose not to

By David Hoppe

They reopened Pendleton Pike last week. The project to widen that seven-mile stretch from two lanes to four took six years and cost $51 million.

Meanwhile, work continues on the Accelerate 465 "urban interstate" expansion project. Work on the renovation of that expressway is expected to continue through 2012 and cost at least $550 million.

When it comes to building roads around here, we spare no expense.

But when the subject turns to public transportation.well, we just can't afford it.

Indianapolis is the 13 th largest city in the country; judging by the size of our bus fleet, you'd think we ranked 98 or 99. In its efforts to make ends meet, IndyGo's back is always against the wall. This forces the service to adopt a no-win proposition, having to raise fares and cut service - even when ridership shows signs of going up.

In 2008, IndyGo officials unveiled a proposal with goals of tripling the number of buses and increasing the service's budget from $52 million to $146 million. In 10-15 years.

Apparently no one at IndyGo has ever heard the word "express."

We are told there's no demand for public transit in Indianapolis. Our love for cars is well known. That would be fine, it might even continue to justify the amount of money we pour into making our highways wider, if it weren't for the fact that all those cars contribute to Indianapolis's failing grades for air quality. The American Lung Association puts us among the ten most polluted cities. This should be an embarrassment for a place that tries to project a clean and upright image, the way we do. I guess you make that clean and upright, with a hacking cough.

Some folks seem to think our public transit situation will get better when we build a commuter rail line between Fishers and Downtown. The trouble is, this one line could cost as much as $160 million. The project is on hold, which is fine because the creation of a rail line, while nifty, will likely only serve to distract us from taking the steps necessary to create the viable transit system we really need.

We shouldn't be thinking of trains in Indianapolis. Buses is where it's at.

Cities around the world are looking at ways to reinvent their bus systems, using fuel efficient, low emission vehicles. Since 2001, Bogota Colombia has been a leader in this field. In Bogota, they abandoned the idea of creating a rail transit system when it became clear that building it would cost too much, create too many construction headaches and take too long to complete.

Bogota designed its bus rapid transit system as if it was an above-ground subway. This meant making express lanes on existing streets and building passenger stations at various points so that people could purchase tickets and board buses the same way subway passengers do. In just less than a decade, Bogota's TransMilenio system now moves more passengers per mile every hour than most of the world's subway systems.

In order to achieve this success, the leadership in Bogota had to come to grips with an important fact of life: To make bus rapid transit work, you have to discourage private transportation. You close some lanes, reroute others and make parking harder, not easier. You make cars less convenient. And in so doing, create less congestion and enable people to live wherever they want and still get to work.

Most important, you improve air quality for everyone. In the past year, TransMilenio has become the only public transit system in the world sanctioned to sell carbon credits, which figures to make Bogota between $100 million and $300 million.

A recent article in <I>The New York Times</I> estimated that subways cost more than 30 times as much per mile to build than bus rapid transit systems and three times as much to maintain. Bus rapid transit systems can also be built more quickly because they don't require the radical digging and tearing up that a metro rail system does. Walter Hook, executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy was quoted: "Almost all rapidly developing cities understand that they need a metro or something like it, and you can get a [bus rapid transit system] by 2010 or a metro by 2060."

Here's the deal: As long as Indianapolis insists on thinking of public transit as an add-on, an option for people who don't have cars or a lifestyle choice for those that do, we can expect to have an under-funded bus system and big ticket highway improvement projects for years to come. Oh, and maybe an ornamental commuter train from Fishers.

We need a new way of talking about public transit. This isn't just about getting around. It means reimagining life in the city and cleaning up our act when it comes to clean air. We can begin this process now or wait and keep spending money on more lanes for trucks and cars.

Now is better.