Indiana

Indy Going, Going, Gone

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

The City of Indianapolis is coming to the aid of Indy Go.  Mayor Greg Ballard announced a plan to provide the financially ailing bus system with short-term cash, while city leaders look for long-term funding solutions.

From my vantage point, the big challenge for the city is going to be to convince people to actually use the system and I’m not quite sure how you make that happen.

I went to IndyGo’s website and did a little trip planning.  To go from the radio station here on the north side of Indianapolis to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway would take nearly two hours.  To go to Lucas Oil Stadium downtown is a 90-minute trip.   Compare that to Chicago’s mass transit.  I used their trip planner to plan a trip from my parents’ home on the south side to downtown and can get there in about an hour.

If  IndyGo wants to be viable and survive long-term, with as few subsidies as possible, it is going to have to figure out a way to make taking the bus worth someone’s time.  And a near two-hour trip to go from point A to point B is not going to cut it.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on May 28, 2010 (boomark / email).