Indy Connect Meeting
I attended an Indy Connect meeting this Tuesday, February 23rd at Pike High School (Northwest Indy). The Indy Connect is a joint venture between the Indy MPO, CIRTA, and IndyGo. The meetings are the first step towards the creation of a new Long-Range Transportation Plan.
These meetings are a great opportunity to meet and discuss issues with a group of people that determine the future of Indianapolis transportation. I strongly encourage anyone interested in the state of transportation in our city, including pedestrian, biking, rail transit, bus transit, and automobility to attend one of these meetings. The planners need feedback to ensure they are delivering the best plan possible.
The planners are real people and not politicians. There is no need to argue with them or blame them for the traffic jam that happened on the way to work. Their job is to interpret the values of the community and form a comprehensive strategy to meet the region's needs. It is clear that the values of our region are changing. While many continue to argue for more and wider roads, the MPO realizes that there is no strategy that can meet the region's needs that does not involve multiple modes of transportation.
I have some suggestions to help anyone interested in attending on of these meetings to get the most from their experience. First of all, come prepared to discuss. The room is filled with stations representing important issues, such as biking or pedestrian plans, with planners hosting each one. This is everyone's chance to discuss these issues in-depth with the planners. I suggest bringing a list of questions about topics that matter.
Next, come prepared to fill out questionnaires and surveys. Each station has a special survey for people to complete. The typical survey asks people to prioritize their concerns about different issues. At the bottom of each survey is a free response area where people can write down anything they want.
Finally, feel free to disregard the static. Some people love to say "NO!" and these events are no exception. It is unlikely that anyone with this attitude will change their mind, so concentrate instead on how to learn from the planners and how to communicate priorities of the public to them in a civil manner.
These meetings are a great opportunity to meet and discuss issues with a group of people that determine the future of Indianapolis transportation. I strongly encourage anyone interested in the state of transportation in our city, including pedestrian, biking, rail transit, bus transit, and automobility to attend one of these meetings. The planners need feedback to ensure they are delivering the best plan possible.
The planners are real people and not politicians. There is no need to argue with them or blame them for the traffic jam that happened on the way to work. Their job is to interpret the values of the community and form a comprehensive strategy to meet the region's needs. It is clear that the values of our region are changing. While many continue to argue for more and wider roads, the MPO realizes that there is no strategy that can meet the region's needs that does not involve multiple modes of transportation.
I have some suggestions to help anyone interested in attending on of these meetings to get the most from their experience. First of all, come prepared to discuss. The room is filled with stations representing important issues, such as biking or pedestrian plans, with planners hosting each one. This is everyone's chance to discuss these issues in-depth with the planners. I suggest bringing a list of questions about topics that matter.
Next, come prepared to fill out questionnaires and surveys. Each station has a special survey for people to complete. The typical survey asks people to prioritize their concerns about different issues. At the bottom of each survey is a free response area where people can write down anything they want.
Finally, feel free to disregard the static. Some people love to say "NO!" and these events are no exception. It is unlikely that anyone with this attitude will change their mind, so concentrate instead on how to learn from the planners and how to communicate priorities of the public to them in a civil manner.
Labels: Indianapolis, infrastructure, Public transit
posted by Graeme at
7:30 AM
5 Comments:
I was at that meeting too! Having been to two of them, I get these feeling that these gatherings draw the extreme ends of the bell curve: the vehemently opposed and the widely in favor. The quiet middle, the ambivalent, will be the biggest challenge. What do you think?
I agree, the only people who are likely to attend these meetings (or view the information online) are the ones who have strong feelings about it. That's why the initial response by the press, including articles in the Indy Star, IBJ, and local newscasts were so important - they brought the issue to a much greater audience.
Getting the word out quickly and establishing a positive public opinion of the plan is essential. The marketing blitz is a great way to start a buzz and kick off the project.
This new plan should be the easiest to sell to the public, because the recommendations were vetted by fiscal conservatives and found to provide a healthy benefit to the community.
Beyond that, most of the money won't be from new sources but from shifting spending priorities to transit from other transportation modes. In other words, most of the money has already been allocated. I think anyone opposed to this plan is probably just uninformed on a basic level or doesn't understand what the MPO is.
Graeme, you may be too kind. I think there are some well-informed knee-jerk opponents who simply don't believe in the concept of "government investment" in infrastructure.
Those folks answer the planners' question "which thing should we do" with "nothing...cut taxes".
Fortunately, people like us do value the planning exercise and answer thoughtfully.
I was at the very first meeting, which the Mayor attended without fanfare, and I had a chance to speak briefly with him about transit as economic development tool for the Washington St. corridor. He smiled. He gets it; if the rest of us who get it influence the shape of the plan with our survey answers, it will be great.
I should add: I wrote "build the Washington St. line first" as one of my survey answers. My reasoning: if a local option sales tax (which will have the unfortunate acronym "LOST") proceeds county by county, Marion County is the most likely to pass it...and the Washington St. line lies entirely within the county.
I agree with you cdc. I think the light rail line will get high visibility, and the highest ridership numbers which is unfortunately the metric most people are going to gauge as a value of success. You can pitch it to Fishers/Noblesville and Greenwood but if they only offer peak hour operation that far out without inner 465 operation during the day, the rider numbers are going to be low and we will lose support.
I made it out to the Plainfield Saturday meeting last week and everyone seemed optimistic there. This old woman was looking at the rail line and traced it further out to Plainfield saying she wished that they would push it further out. I told her to write it on her comment card.
Good comments guys!
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