Indianapolis Redline. Beginning of a Cluster F%&*

[BigRed]

Got a couple million bucks sitting around?

In fiat currency?

 

[thompal]

Hoosier dome (RCA) or Lucas oil? Aren’t we still being taxed for the Hoosier dome?

We may still be paying for MSA.

 

[AtTheMurph]

Until you overcome the cultural stigma (and often the reality) that taking the bus is for the poors and the crazies, you're selling the American Midwestern public a ketchup popsicle. Even then, the logistics of it aren't there. We are not, as a society, designed for easy use of mass transit. We are not even "walkable" in most areas. Plus, our weather often sucks. Who wants to wait at a bus stop in freezing weather, heavy rain, etc. So, yeah, ketchup popsicle. Nobody wants it and it's messy if you're forced to have one.

It works better in much of Europe because the cities were built when foot and hoof was the only way to get around. The cities are walkable and that is instrumental in mass transit working. Things like shopping are not as centralized and more intermixed with residentials. Underground mass transit eliminates a lot of the weather concerns. It's much less sucky to wait 5 minutes for a train in climate controlled and well lit subway stations then in boot-pouring rain by a busy roadway of splashing cars...

it has nothing to do with walkability or design.

The reason that people in most of the USA do not use mass transit is because of wealth and convenience. Except for the eastern cities where owning a car is expensive (think NYC where a parking space for a car costs more than the average Indiana home) and where traffic is a nightmare, owning a car is cheap, convenient and readily accessible to even the marginally "poor".

Riding the bus that drops you blocks away from where you are going, in bad weather and have to wait a quarter to half an hour to see it show up, is not a viable choice.

I was in Milwaukee recently and was surprised to see that there is an electric trolley running in downtown. MKE being much the same as IND, or as I think is more accurate, a small version of Chicago, I laughed and wondered which politicians became wealthy off that deal?

I saw it three different times and never saw more than 2 people on it at one time. At least in Indy the bureaucrats were restricted to only building the red line of busses. I know they wanted to build a trolley but MKE is far more 'progressive" than Indy is. SMH.

 

[Ingomike]

it has nothing to do with walkability or design.

The reason that people in most of the USA do not use mass transit is because of wealth and convenience.

By my take, those are contradictory...

 

[AtTheMurph]

By my take, those are contradictory...

wealth and convenience?

 

[Ingomike]

wealth and convenience?

Walkability and convenience are mostly synonymous to me

 

[HoughMade]

I've never had any issues. Closest I came was a likely pickpocket watching me and he realized pretty quickly I was watching him watching me and moved on.

There are just more people out, for one. People walk places, there are lots of little stores instead of a few really big stores, little cafes, etc even in "residential" areas. Obviously this doesn't apply everywhere all the time, they have rural areas and suburbs as well.

I think there's a structural component, as you touched on, to our resistance to public transit. In the U.S., this seems to exist pretty much everywhere out of the northern east-coast corridor.

Over the past decade, I have literally travelled coat-to-coast on business on many occasions. Would I ever rent a car in New York? Absolutely not. Sometimes I hire a driver, but I have used the MTA to get around Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn without a hassle. One time my assistant had me flying into LaGuardia and staying at the JFK Hilton. I used the bus to get there, then around Queens where my meetings were. No problem.

Everywhere that's not between Washington and Boston, however, public transit may get you somewhat close to your destination, but it's super hit and miss. Indy? Forget it. Even Chicago is, in my opinion, easier to drive than try to use public transit. L.A.? C'mon. No way.

While I have no inherent problem with using public transit, I do have a problem with inconveniencing myself to a huge degree to do it. I get it, I don't need public transit as I have every option. But until the middle and upper middle classes in more U.S. cities see public transit as a viable and not highly inconvenient option, it's just not going to happen, especially when you find out what takes 2 hours on public transit can be driven in half or less the time...which is common outside of New York and Washington. Otherwise, public transit starts to look like just another welfare program and while better transportation can aid in the "bootstraps" pull out of poverty, it's tough to get people who would never consider using it to pay the bill.

I also believe that there are a ton of reasons, structural, political, and economic, that will prevent the wholesale restructuring of city planning to make public transit more of an option. Take a look at what they had to do to build the original NY subway system and tell me that anywhere in the U.S. would do that today. No, in my lifetime, all we will see is incremental changes. It will take an even greater reset to significantly change public transit usage in the U.S.

 

[AtTheMurph]

Walkability and convenience are mostly synonymous to me

I meant the convenience of owing one's own car.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I meant the convenience of owing one's own car.

Right. Due to the walkability and structure. There's no where to walk to and it sucks to walk there anyway and public transport stops are widely spaced in the suburban areas with very limited time tabls. Compare to, say, Barcelona. There are a ton of places in walking distance or an easy public transport ride and walk because there are lots of little stores and little restaurants and little entertainment venues scattered around instead of big versions widely spaced. You're within blocks of a subway entrance pretty much anywhere. There are roads for pedestrians cars can only use one lane of at certain hours for deliveries. There is not much need to drive and it's less convenient because when you do there's little to no parking at your destination so the car is a bother.

 

[AtTheMurph]

Right. Due to the walkability and structure. There's no where to walk to and it sucks to walk there anyway and public transport stops are widely spaced in the suburban areas with very limited time tabls. Compare to, say, Barcelona. There are a ton of places in walking distance or an easy public transport ride and walk because there are lots of little stores and little restaurants and little entertainment venues scattered around instead of big versions widely spaced. You're within blocks of a subway entrance pretty much anywhere. There are roads for pedestrians cars can only use one lane of at certain hours for deliveries. There is not much need to drive and it's less convenient because when you do there's little to no parking at your destination so the car is a bother.

And in Barcelona you have 2 million people, most of whom don't have a car and live in their parents basement. They take public transport or they walk or they stay home.

 

[BigRed]

I seem to recall the redline was to bring development from funds taken by force from citizens.

Yet here it is....a food desert right there by one of its main terminals.

Near north side Dollar General closing, creating more food desert issues

INDIANAPOLIS — Easy access to healthy and nutritional food continues to be a problem for many in Indy, and it looks like the problem is getting worse for one neighborhood. The Dollar General …

fox59.com

It's just a plain damn womderment

Im gonna have to vote more harder next time.

 

[Leadeye]

I suppose I could be defined as living in a food desert if you limit your procurement to buying food. It's 10 miles to the nearest store.

We have a yellow line here, right down the middle of the highway.

 

[Ark]

I seem to recall the redline was to bring development from funds taken by force from citizens.

Yet here it is....a food desert right there by one of its main terminals.

Near north side Dollar General closing, creating more food desert issues

INDIANAPOLIS — Easy access to healthy and nutritional food continues to be a problem for many in Indy, and it looks like the problem is getting worse for one neighborhood. The Dollar General …

fox59.com

It's just a plain damn womderment

Im gonna have to vote more harder next time.

It's because hood people are poorly behaved and that makes it impossible to keep a business open. Sorry not sorry, it's the truth. Grocery stores close up because the people who live there won't stop stealing and fighting and shooting and wandering around high.

And that's why every time I need groceries, I have to get in the car and drive 15 minutes over to Keystone. It's not a "walkability crisis", it's not corruption and profiteering, and it's definitely not Ray Skillman murdering people to keep us all in cars (as a redditor tried to tell me recently). People behave like animals in the stores, so the stores close up and go away. When you break all the nice things people give you, they stop giving you nice things.

 

[jsx1043]

It's because hood people are poorly behaved and that makes it impossible to keep a business open. Sorry not sorry, it's the truth. Grocery stores close up because the people who live there won't stop stealing and fighting and shooting and wandering around high.

And that's why every time I need groceries, I have to get in the car and drive 15 minutes over to Keystone. It's not a "walkability crisis", it's not corruption and profiteering, and it's definitely not Ray Skillman murdering people to keep us all in cars (as a redditor tried to tell me recently). People behave like animals in the stores, so the stores close up and go away. When you break all the nice things people give you, they stop giving you nice things.

I need to hear more about Ray Skillman the serial killer LOL

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I need to hear more about Ray Skillman the serial killer LOL

He stacks 'em deep.

 

[Ingomike]

He stacks 'em deep.

And apparently murders them cheap…

 

[Ark]

I need to hear more about Ray Skillman the serial killer LOL

The TL;TooStupid was that all these car crash deaths are bloodthirsty Ray Skillman's fault because he spends money lobbying against utopian transit nonsense to keep people buying cars and dying in car wrecks.

It was astonishingly stupid even by reddit standards... and massively upvoted of course.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I need to hear more about Ray Skillman the serial killer LOL

Ray Skillman

Ray S Killman

Ray's Kill Man

The clues were all there.

 

[Timjoebillybob]

I need to hear more about Ray Skillman the serial killer LOL

You haven't seen his commercials?

 

[JTScribe]

I need to hear more about Ray Skillman the serial killer LOL

I thought Bob Rohrmann fed them to his lions. Guy's a menace.