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IndyGo’s planned Blue Line is nearing design completion, with hopes of construction beginning in 2024 and service beginning in 2027.
Progress on the transit agency’s third rapid-transit bus line, which will run east and west on Washington Street, was stalled at 60% design completion a year ago when predicted costs ballooned by $300 million over the previously projected $220 million price tag. Since then, IndyGo leaders have adjusted plans and cut costs to a projected range of $370 to $390 million.
Matt Duffy, capital project manager for IndyGo, detailed those changes, the new projected cost, and the timeline in the first of several public meetings on the Blue Line on Tuesday evening.
Design completion is projected for spring 2024, Duffy said, with construction lasting from 2024 to 2026.
The line will replace Route 8, which is IndyGo’s second-most traveled route behind the Red Line. The route is 24.5 miles long.
According to a January 2023 board report, Route 8 had 814,227 riders in 2022, a 7% decrease from 2021.
The only operational bus rapid-transit line, the Red Line, saw a nearly 13% increase in ridership in 2022, at 978,340 compared with 866,400 in 2021. For all of IndyGo’s fixed routes, the Polis Center at IUPUI’s SAVI reported that May 2023 saw the second highest rate of monthly ridership for IndyGo since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, followed by a slight decrease for June and July.
Near the airport
West of Holt Road and near the Indianapolis International Airport, new plans call for the Blue Line will go along Interstate 70 rather than driving west down Washington Street up to High School Road.
The shift drew concerns from west-side business owners and residents due to sorely needed sidewalks and stormwater improvements, which IndyGo would have remedied as part of the construction. The city later stepped in with a commitment to spend $20 million on infrastructure improvements for the segment.
That change saves IndyGo $50 million in capital costs and requires four to five fewer buses, along with cutting operating costs by $1.65 million per year, IndyGo chief development officer Jennifer Pyrz said at the meeting when the increased projected costs were announced.
Duffy said that segment has “the lowest transit usage and transit-beneficial land uses” and the change will provide faster service to the airport. IndyGo still plans to increase transit service in the area east of Holt Road on Washington Street, Duffy said, but those details have not been fleshed out.
Stormwater changes
Particularly in downtown and through Irvington, IndyGo found last year that stormwater improvements to comply with Indianapolis’ and Citizens Energy Group’s requirements would make up a larger chunk of the Blue Line cost than initially anticipated.
The cost of drainage improvements increased from 30% of the line’s total price tag to 42%, IndyGo officials said last year.
The transit agency is charged with taking the current combined sewer and stormwater system and making it into a separated stormwater and sewer system.
Switch to hybrid buses
Unlike buses for the Red Line and the proposed Purple Line, Blue Line buses will be diesel hybrid instead of all-electric under the latest plan.
A ban on using federal money to purchase Chinese-made BYD electric buses—which IndyGo uses for the Red Line and plans to use for the Purple Line—went into effect in December 2021. An alternative electric bus provider IndyGo considered had significantly lower range per charge, which would have meant purchasing twice as many buses to operate the line, Duffy said.
The cost would have been upwards of $130 million, he said. Instead, IndyGo projects the shift to diesel hybrid will cost $35 million.
“It would still be IndyGo’s goal to investigate a zero-emission vehicle option at some point in the future,” Duffy said, noting that the buses will last from seven to 12 years.
Funding sources
The total projected cost for the line is now between $370 and $390 million. Infrastructure, including pavement, pedestrian signals and stormwater improvements, are projected to cost $238 million. Stations are projected to cost $51 million. Vehicles costs are budgeted at $30 million.
Project development is expected to cost $40 million, with financing and right-of-way purchasing expected to cost another $12 million.
To fund the project, IndyGo will request the maximum of $150 million from the Federal Transit Agency’s Small Starts grant program. An additional $36 million would come from other federal grants.
IndyGo can’t apply for these grants until design on the Blue Line reaches completion, Chief Public Affairs Officer Lesley Gordon wrote.
The remaining $185.5 million would come from local sources, like IndyGo revenues and the local transit tax.
IndyGo is hosting four other public meetings this week:
- Wednesday, Aug. 30 from noon to 2 p.m. at the IndyGo West Campus, 1501 W. Washington St.
- Wednesday, Aug. 30 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the IndyGo West Campus, 1501 W. Washington St.
- Thursday, Aug. 31 from noon to 2 p.m. at the Shepherd Community Center, 4107 E. Washington St.
- Thursday, Aug. 31 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Shepherd Community Center, 4107 E. Washington St.
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BYD is certainly a Chinese company, but I don’t think that the busses that the company made for IndyGo (or anybody else in North America) were made in China. They had a manufacturing facility in California. Either way, sanctions are sanctions.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgflip.com%2F3gzuie.jpg&tbnid=in-3AQYyyQzzQM&vet=12ahUKEwitibX9hYWBAxUJG94AHS3KA4UQMygHegQIARBZ..i&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimgflip.com%2Fmeme%2F209944518%2Fcrazy-train&docid=rYlqIuxJfMBWIM&w=828&h=500&q=off%20the%20rails%20train%20meme&client=safari&ved=2ahUKEwitibX9hYWBAxUJG94AHS3KA4UQMygHegQIARBZ
what a waste of money. this could be used for so much more.
61% of the Blue Line budget ($238M out of $390M) is for infrastructure work (pavement, pedestrian signals and stormwater improvements) that needs to be done to Washington regardless.
Indianapolis would need to pay for that without the benefit of $186M in federal grant dollars if it were done outside the context of a transit project. $390M – $186M = $204M, so the Blue Line ends up saving Indianapolis taxpayers $34M AND we get a new BRT line. This is the biggest no-brainer ever.
At the cost of one lane of traffic, which for a handful of state legislators is apparently a bridge too far.
*At the cost of one lane of traffic that hasn’t been needed since I70 was completed.
Chris C. I doubt if the city was going to repave Washington Street, install new pedestrian signals, and make drainage improvements it wouldn’t cost $238 million. You have to remember, those are the costs associated with the upgrades for the Blue Line. If the Blue Line wasn’t going in, I think everyone would be money ahead. Even me, an Indianapolis tax payer.
Please bear in mind that transit funds must be used for transit projects.
like, widening I-70 to
Glad to hear this is moving forward.
Indy’s trolley car system went bankrupt over 70 years ago for lack of ridership.
Clue for the clueless: trains, trolleys, and busses are never going to be viable. Let’s look to more efficient ways of helping those in need.
Don’t say Pacer bikes.
Think Uber cards. Save millions annually and actually be wanted.
Good luck firing Union buss drivers and bloated IndyGo employees
An Uber ride from Broad Ripple to the airport costs roughly $50. Good luck with “saving millions.”
That is incorrect. Indianapolis streetcars were systematically replaced by buses. The last streetcar route to operate was College. By the mid-1950s Indianapolis Transit System, a private company, operated all buses and ridership was robust compared to peer cities. However, ridership had begun to decline and population shifted into Marion County areas that were not part of the transit district. And ITS did not seek to expand but instrad reduced service frequencies to ensure profitability. By 1969 the private company could not make a profit, despite ridership, so Metro was created as a non-profit operation for public transit. Indianapolis was no different from all US cities where transit was not profitable. Transit is a service, as are street lights and parks.
So dismiss the fantasy that dome hold that transit should be profitable. Are roadways profitable? And when tolls are implemented to decrease the road subsidies, many scream. Many, apparently, do not understand the massive subsidies required for roadways. Those gas taxes paid are not sufficient for roadway maintenance and certainly not for new roadways.
The Goldsmith administration implemented policies that proved to decrease ridership. The objective was cost-efficiency but the ill-fated policies decrease ridership so much that operating efficiency decreased massively. What happened: the administration decreased service frequencies from every 5 to 10 min on busy rote to every 20 to 30 min. Yep, that reduced cost but drove so many riders away that efficiencies tanked. Rather than increase local funding as did Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville — nearby peer cities — the administration continued to make service worse through bad policy This rendered Indianapolis the famous/infamous example of what not to do.
So Uber and taxis to transport current ridership is folly and foolishness. While it sounds logical it is not. Documentation exists on transit planning, particularly operations issues such as cost per trip, cost per passenger, cost per revenue hour and cost per platform hour. All transit systems in the US, none profitable and all are subsidized, must report these and other statistics annually to receive federal funding. Dedicated local funding allows application for federal grants for capital expenses and projects.
Just take a look at Houston, Dallas, and Salt Lake. Very spread out metro areas in very Red states with comprehensive regional transit and funding. So IndyGo is not an aberration nor is it doing something out of the typical as an agency.
Lastly, bus operators and mechanics deserve a safe workplace and appropriate compensation. That a union seeks this for employees is not unusual. Should bus operators work for nothing?
Brent, he’s wrong. But that trip is not 50 bucks.
The per passenger cost of providing Uber vouchers would be outrageous! Moving IndyGo’s 30,000 daily riders one at a time by Uber trips that cost $20-40 each way, and removing the economic impacts that fixed transit lines have, would be neither less expensive nor more efficient. Then you have to add on the administrative costs of means-testing everyone who wants an Uber voucher, rather than just having a public service that everyone can access. All around bad idea.
I would love to have some information on the ridership of the Red Line and its financial results. Any of those busses I see are full of crickets and empty seats. I think this is a total waste of funds.
Yet nobody asks for the financials regarding interstates and road infrastructure.
Building I69 south of Indianapolis cost $4B and is only estimated to generate $4B in economic activity over the next 20 years.
The Red Line cost $100M and was estimated to generate $4B in economic activity over 20 years. It’s already generated hundreds of millions of dollars worth of TOD. And if you count the IU Health project, it’s already well past $4B.
Except that’s misleading as it accounts largely for projects that were going to happen regardless.
It’s all available in IndyGo’s website. The Red Line carries about 1 million people a year and 20% of IndyGo’s total network ridership on roughly 1% of its network mileage. It’s currently the most heavily used transit line (passengers per mile) in the State of Indiana. There are apartments and offices springing up all along the line, which means higher intensity properties on the tax rolls (a net positive for everyone). Honestly, despite stumbling out the gate, it’s a slam dunk.
Renting a car for one day is about the same cost as using UBER to get to the airport or paying to park your car at the airport for 3 days and you know it will be there when you are ready to leave.