Late last week, news broke that merchants in Broad Ripple, Indianapolis’s ‘urban village 6 miles north of downtown, officially asked the city for a public parking garage to be built in the village to help ease current parking woes. For the past year or so, Indianapolis has been attempting to ‘modernize’ parking by allowing people to pay meters with credit cards, leasing meters to private firms, and trying to increase revenue from garages and surface lots. And recently, Ryan Vaughn, City-County Council president, threw his support behind the desires of the Broad Ripple merchants and would like to fold the requested parking garage into the city’s parking modernization plan.
This developing story got me thinking once again about the mass transit system, or lack thereof, in Indianapolis. Why is the city continuing to try to find ‘creative’ ways to solve parking problems in places like Broad Ripple and downtownby building or upgrading new parking facilities while ignoring other fixes such as improving bus and rail transit to Broad Ripple? While Indianapolis is concerned about modernizing parking facilities for Broad Ripple, a 21st Century America is building modern rail transit, the transportation option of the future. As it stands today, 34 Canadian and American cities already have operational streetcars and/or light rail transit systems. These cities include:
To hammer home the point that rail transit is gaining popularity in the states, consider this fact: in 2008, every one of the ten rail initiatives that were on the ballot nationwide won. Or how about this fact: Every city that has opened a light rail or streetcar line in this country after 1980, with the exception of Buffalo which opened a line in the early-1980′s, is still planning for or building expansions.
This proves that not only are current rail transit systems successful and found in numerous and diverse places throughout the country, but many other places are continuing to implement rail at increasing rates. So if other communities are utilizing rail to solve their parking and congestion problems (and enjoying enormous economic development benefits as well), why is Indianapolis and Broad Ripple focusing on mediating theirs with more auto-centric solutions? To be fair, there is the IndyConnect plan, something that is currently being touted around the city. If implemented, rail transit will become a reality in central Indiana, a move forward I would applaud. Unfortunately, the current plan completely ignores Broad Ripple and would not help solve their parking problems or congestion issues. Plus, as I have said before, the current plan is largely commuter and suburban based and seems to ignore the needs of an urban population. My question and plea to the city is this: can we please stop trying to find ways to make it easier for people to drive, park, and commute, and find ways to make it easier for people to use public transit and get around the city and reach destinations like Broad Ripple?
Yes, parking policy reform is needed, but what the city ought to be focusing on for Broad Ripple, Indianapolis’s ‘urban village,’ is increasing urban transit service and options to the village and not using public monies to build a parking garage for a mode of transportation that is anti-urban and anti-pedestrian. Increasing parking spaces in Broad Ripple will only attract more cars in the village and won’t solve current parking problems. As cars increase, pedestrianism decreases and Broad Ripple will lose its village feel. The true ‘modern’ approach to the village’s parking problems is increasing urban transit service and options.
One great non-rail idea comes from Kevin over at UrbanIndy where he says the city ought to run a regular circulator bus in the evening from Glendale Mall to Broad Ripple and back via Kessler and Broad Ripple Avenue. As he points out, Glendale Mall has an abundance of parking spaces and would likely welcome the increased exposure and traffic. This could also increase exposure for IndyGo, allowing people to use transit who otherwise wouldn’t go near a bus, solve a significant amount of parking problems, and not increase the car presence in the village. I think this is a great immediate fix that ought to be looked at as an option before building a public parking garage.
With that said, the best long-term idea that I continue to champion is to build a streetcar or light rail line along College Avenue to connect downtown to Broad Ripple. As I’ve said before, this connection seems obvious and a no-brainer: the two areas are urban Indianapolis’s premier entertainment and shopping districts. A light rail or streetcar connection would capitalize on these place-based assets, allow a higher number of people to frequent each place and go towards solving the parking problems that currently plague each district – especially Broad Ripple’s. The rail line should be included in the IndyConnect plan to ensure Indianapolis truly has a ‘modern’ transit system similar to other cities in this country. Simply solving Broad Ripple’s parking problems with a ‘modern parking’ plan seems to be a bit of an oxymoron these days.
It will be interesting to see how this parking garage situation in Broad Ripple pans out. If the city does give the go-ahead and the village does get their parking garage, I at least hope the structure is designed well and doesn’t tower over the neighborhood. But hopefully the city will rethink this policy decision and instead focus on increasing transit options and increasing pedestrianism in the village. This is the true ‘modern’ approach to the current parking problem and something the city needs to be doing in order to keep up and compete with the ‘modern’ American city of the 21st Century.
36 if you count Chicago.
I hear you on all of this, but rail doesn’t work unless you have a strong bus system to feed into and out of it. Rail won’t work in Indy until IndyGo is funded well enough to ditch 30- and 60-minute midday headways for 10- and 15-minutes headways from early morning until late evening, 7 days a week. And if that ever came to pass, you’d be well tided over until funding materialized for light rail. Look at Milwaukee, no light rail to speak of yet, but at least the bus system runs better than every half hour to an hour on major lines throughout the day. Indy needs that kind of bus system, first and badly.
I’ll agree, Indy does need a better and more modern bus system. But I think an urban rail system, coupled with significant land use planning changes along the routes, can be successful and spur urban development. I suppose we will see what happens in Cincinnati, a city who is about to implement rail in which there is an average bus system – certainly better than Indy’s but by no means Chicago’s.
37 if you count Vancouver, 38 with Miami, 39 with Detroit’s diminutive but existant people mover, 40 with Montreal, 41 with Mexico City …
I’m not going to do any more fact-checking for you, but you should definitely be more thorough.
Eric. Those are cities with light rail and/or streetcar systems…the 2 modes I recommended for college avenue in Indy. The cities you refer to have heavy or commuter rail. Or elevated people movers. Sorry for the confusion. Ill reclarify in my post.
Fair enough
Initially I’d thought that, but your inclusion of New York in the original list threw me.
Great, a parking garage in BR so more people can party and drive home drunk, a bus/streetcar solution would also make our streets safer!
A streetcar wouldnt solve the drunk driving problem, at least in the venings. The expense of running a streetcar at late weekend hours is typcially a narrow service. On the surface it sounds like a great idea. Take the drunk drivers off the road. But the streetcar has to be where they are going, and all bar goers do not come from the same places.
That said, I am 100% in agreement with Greg. A streetcar from DT to College links the two most successful pockets in the city. From a planning perspective, this is a win situation. Furthermore, it could be argued that investing in rail transit to Broad Ripple instead of some of the suburbs, would offer a larger return on investment.
I feel like a parking garage is a ridiculous idea. The fact that a senior city council member is backing it publically in the press scares me even more.
First, thanks for the props.
Second, I sent you an e-mail.
First, I must admit that I don’t know Indianapolis very well. I’m an urban designer that has worked in or visited nearly every major city and my closest experience with Indy is driving past once or perhaps an airport layover.
I currently live and work in Dallas and have recently written a long draft about the Why and How-to of revising the very generic hand-me down parking codes that most cities have in some form or iteration.
Correct me if I’m wrong on any of these points as I interpret the Broad Ripple area via this article and a little help of Google Earth. It seems to be a walkable village cluster that may or may not have once been a streetcar “cluster,” although it seems too far out to have been connected to a historic streetcar line.
Whether it is new or revitalized historic though is beside the point. Broad Ripple is a walkable urban destination that is scaled to serve the immediate neighborhood area, but because of lack of supply of similarly scaled/design places and experiences throughout the Indy metro area, it has been elevated to a regional destination, therefore making it an “Invaded City” to use Jan Gehl’s terminology. It is overwhelmed by the car traffic coming to drive to and park in an area not designed to accommodate it.
The two ways around this are as pointed out above, offering alternative modes of transpo to alleviate both congestion and parking or adding parking facilities. This gets dangerous for two reasons, one, as you point out making driving/parking easier increases traffic/congestion/willingness to drive. Furthermore, the formulae to determine traffic counts and parking req’ts are vastly out of date and self-perpetuating/reinforcing so that engineering firms can pour more concrete.
The deeper issue is what is necessary, what I’m also proposing in Dallas, but is still in draft/bounce off others stage, and that is to define various areas throughout the City as Neighborhood Centers and Regional Centers. Dallas has several similar clusters to Broad Ripple that are facing the exact same “invaded”/identity issues. Should it be a regional destination or a neighborhood destination? If it is determined to be a regional one, it must be prepared/planned for new forms of transportation/access, increased density, parking facilities to “dock” regionwide visitors, and have a parking management agency to prevent parking from undermining the character.
Of course, all of that could undermine the character of the place that has put it in such high demand. Then if it is determined to be a Neighborhood Center, then that has several of its own ramifications. There MUST be other neighborhood centers established throughout the city with form-based overlays/incentives to encourage similarly scaled development and to give a safety valve to preserve Broad Ripple’s character. With a city of scattered villages, the parking supply comes predominantly in the form of people’s own property/garages, because they are now within walking/biking distance of the majority of their trips vastly reducing VMTs and stress on certain parts of the city.
Furthermore, parking should be priced to market/demand to park there, revenue for parking should be determined by neighborhood association and probably should remain in the area towards amenities rather than the general fund, and new “green” connections should be made within a 1- or so-mile area improving pedestrian/bike connections to the area (perhaps funded by parking) in order to improve access from the neighborhood center’s “gravitational pull” or catchment area.
Hope this helps in some way.
~patrick.
Thanks for the interesting response Patrick. Considering Broad Ripple is Indianapolis’s only current walkable urban destination outside of downtown, it has definitely become a regional center, as you pointed out. This is the way the district should continue to be planned and, as you pointed out, proper transit should serve the district to allow it to become an even better regional draw. Attempting to fix Broad Ripple, a regional destination, with non-regional fixes, makes no sense. And yet, no one thinks along these lines. So the parking problems of Broad Ripple will only continue to perpetuate.
If, however, the city wants to actively create neighborhood centers around town – and there are a few that have potential (Irvington comes to mind) – then maybe Broad Ripple can take on a different form all together. But I do not see this kind of regional planning or forethought takeing place here for some time, so until then, Broad Ripple will and should serve as a regional center.
I’ve only just stumbled across this post and comments and welcome the interest in Broad Ripple Village’s unique situation in Indy. Thought you ought to know that the community has worked with DMD for the past 2 years on Envision Broad Ripple. This public planning process is creating a new master plan for the Village and as you might expect, parking, greenspace and transit are important community interests.DMD has recommended that Broad Ripple Village create an area for the application of Form Based Code to help guide development and to preserve and enhance the Village “look and feel.”
Since this post is about parking in BRV, I’d like to point out a few things.
1) Coupled with a request for a parking garage (which, incidentally, was a recommendation to the City from two parking studies of the Village by Walker & Assoc.) the community has asked for a neighborhood parking permit program. Currently Lockerbie is the only neighborhood that uses such a program and the City admits the program needs fine-tuning before expanding to the residential neighborhoods surrounding BRV. This would help stimulate demand for a garage since nighttime visitors couldn’t easily park in residential areas.
2) The reason there is a parking problem in BRV is that decision makers at the Board of Zoning Appeals & Alcoholic Beverage Commission allowed for the expansion of taverns & nightclubs in the area w/o regard to impacts on parking, trash & crime.
3) BRV has long encouraged increased transit access and the Envision BR project has been successful in convincing the IndyConnect group to include a College Ave. light rail corridor in its plans. The community has also endeavored to work w/ IndyGo to establish a circulator route between Glendale & Butler U but there is no funding for this $1million+ initiative.
4) recent improvements to the BR Avenue streetscape (bump outs, decorative pedestrian crosswalks, benches, bike racks, etc.) were promoted by the community and successful only after months of intensive lobbying and fund-raising. All of these elements are components of “complete streets” and “transit-oriented development” standards that lay the foundation for improved transit in BRV.
5) BRV is a destination neighborhood that draws not only from downtown but from the surrounding counties as well. One transit line will not fix either accessibility or parking problems. I agree, we live in a car-dominated culture and need to quit subsidizing auto use but until transit is a reality and the public agrees that it is worth investing in, we’ll have to accommodate cars in the Village and a couple of mixed-use garages will go a long way to alleviating the problems.
Eric, Soapbox reported yesterday that Cincinnati’s bus system was being rethought to better serve hub-to-hub trips, including the eventual northern terminus of the streetcar. So bus and rail planning are now happening there in tandem. See here:
http://www.soapboxmedia.com/devnews/0727metrobussystem.aspx
Eric? Greg I mean. Where did that come from. Sorry!
Thanks for the link. How on earth I missed this story I’ll never know. Don’t tell Randy! And as for the Eric name reference, no worries Mark.