Future of IndyGo in doubt
by Steve HammerArticle Tools
The future of the IndyGo system will be on the line during public hearings this Thursday at the Indianapolis Convention Center regarding bus rate increases and service reductions.
Even if you never ride the bus, you should be outraged by the fact that, instead of drastically expanding the reach of mass transit in the city, we've now been reduced to discussing how much more a bus ride is going to cost and just which bus routes we're going to eliminate. In other words, the government is going to ask us just how badly we want to be screwed.
The reductions are coming due to a $3 million budget shortfall affecting IndyGo. The money has to come from somewhere and so the city, of course, is going to place the burden upon the people who actually use mass transit to get to and from work. National studies already place Indianapolis at or near the bottom of all measurements of effectiveness of mass transit and apparently it's going to get much, much worse before it gets any better.
The lack of leadership from the mayor's office has been staggering. The City-County Council, gridlocked and inefficient in the best of times, doesn't care either. And even though the governor's office is right next to a major bus stop, the governor himself is too busy buying shoes that make him look taller and booking trips to Iowa and New Hampshire to give two thoughts to the issue of transit.
The media, for the most part, couldn't care either. Erika D. Smith of the Indy Star has written some excellent articles on the topic.But even Ms. Smith's weekly blog posts, in which she bravely gets on a bus for an hour or two, and then writes about how frightful the experience it was, strikes me as being condescending. (Among her revelations: The bus is crowded during rush hour! It's bumpy! It takes longer to take the bus than it does to drive somewhere! Sometimes people are smelly!)
But at least Ms. Smith is shining a light on the struggles of the transit system. Hardly any other media outlet seems to care.
I may or may not be a luminary of the local media -- I certainly hope I'm not -- but I've ridden IndyGo buses more than 500 times in the past few years, so I probably have at least 200 times the experience of just about any other local writer when it comes to actually using our bus system.
You know what? The IndyGo system is one of the few governmental institutions in this city that actually works. Take it away and you're depriving thousands and thousands of people of the ability to hold down a job. Handicapped people with no other alternative for transport will literally be stranded. And the poor and elderly will be deprived of the dignity of being able to travel around the city their labor and tax dollars helped build.
Unlike some of my fellow passengers, I have a car. But parking garages near my office on Monument Circle want between $10 a day and $200 a month for parking, money I can't afford. The bus drops me off 100 yards from the entrance to my office and picks me up at the end of my shift. My monthly bus pass is more than worth its $60 cost.
From where I live in SoBro, it takes 15-20 minutes to drive downtown, about 10 minutes to park and another five to get to the office. The bus takes about 30 minutes on a bad day. It's actually more time-efficient. Also, I avoid the stress of rush-hour traffic and get a chance to catch up on my reading.
I've probably read 50 books and numerous magazines and newspapers on the bus, knowledge I never would have gained were I stuck in traffic listening to the radio 10 times a week.
And, sure, I've seen some strange characters on the bus: alcoholics, sodomites, sociopaths, gum-chewers, Republicans and other undesirables. I also see those same categories of people on the streets of Carmel, in the Statehouse and in just about every office in which I've worked.
And the front-line IndyGo employees, the drivers, are highly trained, compassionate people who truly care about the people they transport. The blind, the wheelchair-bound, the forgotten people of the city -- those are their clients and they're well-cared for by the drivers.
It's ironic that even as the president of the United States discusses the need for high-speed light rail to connect the great cities of the Midwest, the transit system of Indianapolis is struggling to survive. We need the mayor to get off his ass, the governor to quit making plans to run for president and our congressmen to flex some muscle in Washington to fix this problem.
The hearings will be held at 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. in Rooms 101 and 102 of the Convention Center. I'll be working and won't be able to make it. But I hope there's a big turnout and a loud, unified voice in opposition to service reductions. The working men and women of this city deserve better than this.
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Hammer...really? I normally find your radical diatribes amusing, accepting them as often exagerated to make your points. But the very serious comment you make above regarding who should pay for IndyGo's shortfall reveals how deeply socialist you really are. "The money has to come from somewhere and so the city, of course, is going to place the burden upon the people who actually use mass transit..." REALLY? And you would prefer that people (like me) who don't use the system pay instead? To haul your butt around? The people who use the bus are PRECISELY the ones who should pay. Can't afford it? Don't ride it.
Hell, you spent half the column telling us how much money you save by riding the bus. God forbid you have to cough up another quarter. Oh wait....here, let me help you out....
Please...do you ever listen to yourself?
It's idiocy written and spoken like this statement above that keeps Indianapolis from being a true world-class city. This is why folks world-wide think Indianapolis is full of hilljack hyenas.
I hope this is a person that is truly uneducated and 6 years old, because I cannot imagine that an "educated" adult living in a city the size of Indianapolis cannot grasp the importance of viable and affordable public transporation for ALL its citizens.
Public transporation is not a luxury for anyone-why is that so hard for folks in this city to understand? Why are we THE ONLY CITY in the country that does not get it? If this city does not wake up and start fixing this shameful mess we call Indygo, your burden will truly just be beginning, "truth hurts". Believe that.
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