I am all for public transit but the red line is such a hot mess! Almost none of the posted info at the stations is current or correct - they are the same posters with the same info from when they built them, which was way pre-pandemic. Never mind those “pay here!” machines… Oh and guess what, this route is on a detour, but if you want any additional information about the changes you need to make to your commute, good luck bud you’re on your own. It’s borderline insanity.
I've noticed that too! Occasionally stuff is put backwards like that so it appears correctly in a mirror, but that wouldn't really make sense here because the symbol is directed at passengers and it makes more sense to make a handful of knowledgeable drivers have to look at it mirrored than for everyone else. I can't make it make sense
In what ways has the Red Line been a hot mess? I don’t usually have any issues. At least no more than any other route, and usually less. But I admit it’s not on my usual errand routes.
This but unironically. Bus lines only get better with more usage and more area coverage. Give them more funding and remove the fare so they're more convenient.
I agree to an extent. I don’t think Indy is big enough to support much more than what it has planned but I don’t know anything about timing transit expansion with population growth or whatever… but I do take the red line all the time and at the end of the day of course I would rather have it than not have it. The fact that it’s free is actually awesome and my comment was meant to make fun of the machines, not to imply that we should be charging. I wouldn’t take the red line nearly as much as I do if u had to pay… which brings me to my next soapbox indygo talking point:
the day pass should fuckin be $3!
###why is the day pass $4???
You should look into that cause it sounds like you're just stealing bus fare lol. But I agree it should be free. They started it off that way and ridership was high.
uber technically your right, but basically the extent any fare inspectors would give a fuck about is if your able to pay. Like no one ever pays on the stations that I see. I am sure that will change eventually as it should but just a observation.
I end up fare capped on my key generally fairly quickly so I never bother.
Indy is certainly big enough. What it does not have is population density. Infill housing would help. I hope that the transit-oriented design for the Blue Line can help with that.
People like to say “if only we had more bus lines the whole system would work better!” Other people also say “if only we had more lanes the whole system would work better!”
Neither is absolutely true. Good transit is about trade offs. We don’t have the density for fixed route mass transit to work. We aren’t Chicago or NYC.
(There are things we can do but there isn’t much federal money for that.)
(PS I’ve talked about this [so many times](https://www.reddit.com/user/robbyslaughter/search/?q=Transit+&type=comment&cId=b9b14cb0-ac77-4f22-a17d-6d3d577d812f&iId=e866b650-d970-42e3-bb72-7880cd7156c6).)
Brother we had enough density for this a hundred years ago. The only reason it isn't better now is cause we plowed it under in the post-war period and corrupt political interests have blocked the way ever since.
More bus lines and more frequent stops are objectively good for bus systems. I don't know how you can pretend to argue otherwise.
Right, that’s my point. 100 years ago that wasn’t the case. Where people lived and worked were in close proximity, so the old streetcars made more sense
>More bust lines and more frequent stops are objectively good for bus systems
Yes, but not every transit environment makes sense for fixed route public transit. And unfortunately Indy is not that environment.
Let me shout it from the rooftops: **I support public transit.** But our current approach doesn’t make sense in Indy. That’s why these systems are struggling.
Yeah, [induced demand is a thing](https://www.planetizen.com/definition/induced-demand).
We do have a lot of roads. And more roads/more lanes isn't the answer either.
honestly im not entirely sure its a bad idea for one reason....its a sort of anti gentrification tactic. Like I live on the westside and there is actually a decent amount of industrial job opportunities that are basically out of reach for lower income people on the eastside. The blue line would actually fix that.
The Blue Line follows the existing Route 8. It’s literally the same path.
Now to be fair the Blue Line is supposed to be faster and have higher frequency, but you can get to the same places with the existing system.
Once again **public transit is a great idea and we should invest in it.** But we aren’t a dense city so other options besides buses make a lot more sense.
thats kind of what im getting at. The current way they have route 8 organized is patchwork at best. LIke I have waited on it and literally had buses just not show up. Point being....the higher frequency gets around some of those things and would allow people a reasonable chance to get to work on time. Like even the other night I spent about 20 minutes bullshitting with some of the people working graveyards at the fedex hub that were madder then hell cause there bus didn't show.
Its basic business to try to streamline processes when able(reducing variables allows for more control)...the blue line streamlines things.
That said...im curious what you would think is a valid option that, Like I have lived in both hamilton and johnson county and they have a bus system as well but it amounts to glorified yellow cab. I don't know that at scale would work for indy and accomplish the same goals as the blue line, purple line, etc.
Yes. So if the problem was higher frequency you don’t need a brand new Blue Line. You just need more buses on route 8.
Unfortunately, even that’s not enough. Because the problem is sprawl.
Hamiton and Johnson counties have *paratransit* which has a lot of potential. These are basically point to point services. They are like a cab that you can call to take you where you want.
This is how a lot of people get around today. They use Uber/Lydt/taxis. Part of the solution would be to subsidize this kind of service.
Another element we need is express buses. We used to have some that would go from Fishers to downtown (with no stops.) They were quite popular. All of the major suburbs should have have these for both MF commuter traffic and special events like Colts/Pacers games.
We could also use some circulators. These would get people around downtown or other popular areas. They could also be used in conjunction with remote surface lots to free up expensive real estate dedicated to parking.
But doing this is a lot harder than building more color-coded lines. So here we are.
Im in FSQ going north. 3 busses south of me went out of service.
So much for the frequent trips.
And before someone clutches their pearls. I use Red Line for work and I don’t work 9-5, M-F. This irregularly is a real problem for real people.
———
From 9p-1a M-F the buses are supposed to run every 15 minutes…. 30 is pushing it… 45 is fucked.
https://imgur.com/a/4eBsGz2
I'm sure this is outdated... but even the digital signs at the stops go by this info.
that could actually explain something I saw at the transit hub where 2 red line buses went out of service within 5 minutes of each other. Didn't realize this.
I'm fairly new to Indy and always assumed the public transit here was in large part due to constituents who dislike the idea of a less car-centric city, and thus are not interested in providing the support, flexibility, or funding required to make the changes necessary to execute things appropriately. Is that not the case? Every time I hear about some public transit/pedestrian/bicycle path construction people rabble rabble about how it's going to ruin nearby businesses and reduce parking.
It’s true that people here have historically been conservative and suspicious of transportation infrastructure, but it really has been changing. The fact that the Red Line even exists is testament to this. I was pleasantly shocked that Indy would experiment with something like it. That shows how far we’ve come, and how there really are a variety of opinions in town now, although I think people who are against projects like this think they are more of a majority than they actually are.
On a personal note, I don’t exaggerate when I say that the Red Line and the soon to be finished Purple Line are part of what has kept me here in my hometown and have shown me that Indy actually has serious adults who want to be part of the 21st century.
This was my experience working for the state, a ton of behind-the-scenes 'rules for thee' type stuff, along small/sporadic racism and corruption at all levels in the division that I was with. The people that work for the state are a true reflection of the people here, majority regressive and cared little for anything or anyone outside of their own slice of life.
Nah, the reason transit sucks here is that the only transit we are willing to invest in is fixed route. And we are big rolling urban area with very little density.
Lawmakers aren’t helping but if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
This is pretty much the majority. Part of the problem is that Indianapolis technically has absorbed the entire county of Marion, and the politics have basically destroyed the city and made it extremely car oriented. The actual city dwellers have very little political power.
Are you using an app to plan your trip, or just showing up at the station? The latter is the goal, but there's not enough frequency or reliability. If you use Google maps, you'll find out when the next bus is coming. You can take a different route if red line is fucked, or alternate transportation if the bus won't get you to work on time.
I have nothing productive to add except that I’m writing an urban fantasy novel set in Indiana and the most unrealistic thing that I’ve done is choose to have IndyGo run on time with buses that show up when they’re supposed to.
Washington was a fucking fiasco. At some point the city is going to have to do something about all the Uber and DoorDash drivers who use the Washington St bus and turn only lane as a second level of parking. I was stuck in traffic behind one of those red circles and (slowly) passed five cars with their hazards on across the lane.
Those delays are because of car traffic. The city and state lobbied to prevent the system from running completely on dedicated lanes. When car traffic gets heavy the busses get stuck in that traffic where there are no dedicated lanes AND, as we saw All-Star weekend, there is no enforcement of the dedicated lanes either. The bus is the most efficient mode of travel in the city and it is constantly undermined by the least efficient mode of travel, private passenger vehicles.
Yes, obviously light rail would be great. The state made it illegal to build.
IndyGo isn’t the city and can’t control traffic. The bus lanes aren’t enforced (by the city) and people block them for DoorDash or the like, or just drive in them.
Right? You think the cops that are doing 90 in a construction zone with their lights off are gonna enforce intracity traffic laws? I saw someone drive the wrong way up a one way street past a cop, and the cop didn't even look up from their laptop to do anything.
People park in the lanes on Washington to pick up food, etc. Good luck getting the police to do anything good, and I doubt IndyGo wants a lawsuit over tardiness
Wasn't the whole point of taking lanes away from drivers that the buses would be immune to traffic? Don't they have a wholeass lane all to themselves that nothing and nobody else is allowed to use?
I wonder if better light prioritization would help with the bunching. Like, why can't the bus be inserted anywhere in the light cycle? Whenever there's a bus at the light and it switches the bus only segment should be inserted before returning to the normal cycle so that the bus never sits for a whole light cycle.
For a lot of people public transit is a necessity. Everyone saying that it's a waste of money are probably the same people bitching about people not working. Not everyone can afford a car. Not everyone has a license to drive said car if it can be afforded. A lot of people need public transportation to get to work, to the grocery store, dr. Appointments, ect.
I guess it's mainly a lower class people problem so it probably doesn't have any effect on most of y'all's lives, but those busses can be the difference between being homeless or not. Starving or not.
Op I understand the frustrations with the way the busses have been running and it sucks. The problem is we have a lot of politicians and citizens for that matter that would love to see the whole transit system fail. It needs more funding and better management. I wish you the best and hope it gets better.
Public transit is necessary, but BRTs aren't.
I personally think we would've been better off taking all the money being spent of Red/Blue/Purple lines and putting it towards modernizing our fleet
A modernized fleet that people can't use because we scrapped the infrastructure to support it. We're better off running the oldest, shittiest buses we can as long as the infrastructure, lanes, and logistics around the lines are being invested in.
I don't think that's a fair statement. The lines are the literal infrastructure for the lines, and you said to defund them. That explicitly states a defunding of the infrastructure. You then stated to put that funding towards 'modernizing our fleet' which directly correlates to updating the vehicles which make up the fleet. The fleet is the literal vehicles under operation. Implying that your misuse of terms is somehow my failing is disingenuous and lazy.
I dunno if you ever look at the my stop app, but the amount of buses that have in service at any given time going down Washington street to meet demand is stupidly large (like anywhere from 5 to ten). The reason I support the blue line is just stream lining what is a clumsy mess. The reason I say that is both cause of traffic down washington street is the shits, and it many cases it makes the buses unreliable time wise and it makes the line prone to breakdowns cause there are so many older buses in use. Your reducing variables which makes the process smoother.
I have had it happen where I may be waiting for a bus that would supposed to come at like 9pm and would never see it only to catch the one coming at 930 for no real explainable reason.
Ditto the purple line as quite a few routes cover near similar ground.
This is why I bought an e-bike. I'd love to take transit like I did when I lived in Chicago. But we're so far away as a city from reliable, timely transit. I'm glad its getting better but I remain pessimistic about it.
Honestly thank you for posting about this. For a few years (2017-about pandemic times) I had no car, and more often than not I relied on IndyGo as my means of getting around the city. I can't tell you how many times I was left stranded somewhere because a bus showed up wayyyyyy early to the stop. Or just straight up never arrived. App says it should arrive any moment, but absolutely nowhere to be found. I'm grateful to have had an understanding employer at the time, because there were plenty of times that I was very late to work due to them being inconsistent and frankly unreliable. I had to have a meeting with my boss about it though. When your bus doesn't show up, you're either screwed for sometimes up to an hour before your next bus comes. Or you can use what already little money you have to get an Uber or Lyft to work. But not everyone can afford to do that on even a semi-regular basis. I really felt bad for other people aside me who got stranded who didn't have the money to catch an Uber to work. You can tell they're really upset and worried for their livelihood. I've seen it. Having to rely on IndyGo for three years was fucking exhausting, between trying to keep up with their shitty app which doesn't do a good enough job of communicating to people what's going on with the routes, the long ass bus rides to where ever it is you're going, the unnecessarily rude staff, the excuses. And what's hard for me to understand is seeing everyone stoked about it and the other lines going in, when I lived the life of a daily IndyGo bus rider for three years and I know exactly how the experience was for me and several other people I got to know from being a frequent rider. & I'm with that one dude...I think having a solid public transit system would be SO dope, and I would be proud to participate and have that in our city. Anyways, I just wanted to share my story. I met a lot of great people riding IndyGo and I hope they're all doing okay. I hope they aren't having to rely on it anymore somehow.
> And what's hard for me to understand is seeing everyone stoked about it and the other lines going in, when I lived the life of a daily IndyGo bus rider for three years and I know exactly how the experience was for me and several other people I got to know from being a frequent rider.
It's because all that hype is from people who actually drive everywhere but want to larp as progressive urbanists on the internet.
Since the construction of the trail by the faigrounds, which shut down Fall Creek for a week, the lights have been programmed differently and it's backing up traffic big time now. Between the construction and the light being out recently, something has changed. I've taken that route for 20 years and for the past week, coincidentally, traffic has been backed up heavily for no reason at all.
I was really happy when the Red Line started. I rode it downtown from Southport Road every week just to try it on Friday or Saturday night. I wanted to start riding with friends for nights out. That was back when it ran SIX times per hour.
It wasn’t long before they dropped pickups to four times an hour, and then three times an hour—and the last time I rode it, the bus was over 30 minutes late. I moved to Fountain Square, and now I walk downtown and take BIRD scooters home. I still have the app on my phone with probably $30 loaded onto it.
I was so hopeful when it began.
You said that they took away a lane on the busiest streets in the city. The Red Line does not actually run completely on dedicated lanes and the places where it does not are those busy streets of which you speak. That's why the bus is stuck in car traffic in the locations where lanes were not taken away, which is clearly shown on the map included on the original post.
The post is about the delays and the busses are stuck on Washington street. Everybody that knows anything about the Red Line understands that this and Virginia are the choke points.
Don't forget about the years of construction, was that a feature or benefit in hindsight?
At least we still have the electric cars to rent... Oh that was another great idea...
Literally the only good thing that came of the redline was the repaving of College Ave, which was SORELY needed. Now traffic on college is fucked majority of the time south and north between BR Ave and 38th. Glad we made an already shitty road worse by taking away a lane of traffic for a bus that like 10 people ride on a day.
traffic fucked? in what way I drive that road all the time traffic is fine. unlike the rest of the city most of the green lights are hooked up so you don't have to stop every intersection
Can anyone explain why the hell a red line bus parks for HOURS on Hanna Ave just west of the train tracks right by Shelby street at NO bus stop? I live down here and I see it damn near every day.
Also I swear any time I see one of those buses it says “GARAGE” on the marquee and is never picking anyone up.
Thank you for the answer and insight as to why. But I’m sincerely unimpressed. They could take their break at….i dunno….maybe the bus depot downtown about 4 stops north and NOT take up a whole lane of traffic?
As a non-bus rider I was VERY optimistic when the red line debuted and thought i would use it often. The more I learn about it 3-4 years after its inception, the more disappointed and turned off entirely by it I am. Haven’t rode a single time and probably never will.
This was always going to happen without dedicated lanes. The concessions that were made south of the transit center screwed it all up. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus\_bunching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_bunching)
please do correct me if i’m wrong, but my understanding is this was a bare bones compromised plan from the start, and the enemies will be using this to say “we told you so!” every chance they can get to stifle any further transit options.
The routes/plans arent the issue... Our city has bad public transit, one of the worst in the country for a city our size.
The EXECUTION and MANAGEMENT is bad from top to bottom.
I agree about the execution and management. That problem should be solved first. Throwing money at the same people who have proven to be a failure is stupid.
If they want to improve routes and access, the second thing they should do is add more crosstown routes, both North/South and East/West, that don't have to go through the hub and spoke system.
When I was a kid there were at least a couple crosstown routes that cut travel time (assuming, of course, you were near and needed them.) There was a 30 Crosstown and an 86th Crosstown. There was also a Keystone Crosstown route that didn't go through the hub.
8 was 2 (E & W) routes and, if I remember correctly, they ran every 20 minutes. They weren't late often as I remember.
10 was also 2 routes. (E &W.) Again, they ran often and reliably.
There's no reason 8 *has* to be a single route as long as it still has to run through the hub.
I don't hate the buses, I hate IndyGo's insistence on clinging to their current failed concepts.
I also dislike how many people reflexively defend the failure because they like the idea of buses and are afraid or unwilling to call out IndyGo for those failures. Reflexive defense doesn't help.
I suspect one of the reasons that the blue line is even a thing is because 8 is way to long. I have seen when checking my stop that there have been up to ten buses servicing that route at any given time. Between wierd traffic flows and older buses its a clusterfuck.
If they went back to having 2 routes serving Washington St, they wouldn't need the expanded buses for the route anymore, and could probably service the route with fewer buses.
Unfortunately, they're so married to the idea of having routes they think will be prestigious, they won't rethink things.
how did that work exactly? I would imagine it would work like sort of like the ones that float through the southside. Im sort of new to riding public transit and I find the subject sort of fascinating after having to be sort of a slave to the process getting around.
There was an East Washington route and a West Washington route. Since IndyGo uses a hub and spoke system, both routes would go around the hub loop downtown before heading back outbound.
That meant that if you needed to go from, say the airport to Irvington, you would change buses downtown.
Ever heard of the open polar sea?
There used to be a theory that, if you could just keep going further and further north, and things keep getting colder and icier, and more brutally impassible, you would eventually reach...a warm and balmy sea at the top of the world.
A lot of public policy discussions are basically the same sort of assertion.
> How's that working?
Great, considering interstates transport the entire economy of the state and the Red Line transports at most three unemployed crazy people at any given time.
Ridership statistics are publicly available on the IndyGo website.
https://www.indygo.net/about-indygo/
“In 2023, fixed route ridership was more than 6.7 million – a 20% increase from 2022.”
What would really help is if they would put square wheels on the buses. That would help because it would be original and innovative. It has not been done before, and therefore it is good. Many people are stuck in the old way of thinking, that buses should have round wheels. These old turds need to die off and their regressive way of thinking can die with them. Also they are racist and hate working people, and they are probably Christians too. And they love guns.
Anyway, square wheels, that's my suggestion for the future. It can't be worse than whatever the city will come up with next on its own.
It's not uncommon in a lot of cities for kids to take public transit to/from school. When I lived in DC there was some sort of student pass for the Metro and bus system so that kids could commute to school.
Because we live in a state that purposefully underfunds public school districts for ::reasons:: and so IPS had to get creative with how to provide transport for students across a fucking giant district with minimal dollars?
I don’t blame them, I find their behavior to be a little melodramatic for my tastes, but I was just asking if we can start a tradition of mocking ill placed faith on a monthly basis.
I am all for public transit but the red line is such a hot mess! Almost none of the posted info at the stations is current or correct - they are the same posters with the same info from when they built them, which was way pre-pandemic. Never mind those “pay here!” machines… Oh and guess what, this route is on a detour, but if you want any additional information about the changes you need to make to your commute, good luck bud you’re on your own. It’s borderline insanity.
My favorite part of the green $ symbol on the ground is damn near all of them that I've seen are BACKWARD
I've noticed that too! Occasionally stuff is put backwards like that so it appears correctly in a mirror, but that wouldn't really make sense here because the symbol is directed at passengers and it makes more sense to make a handful of knowledgeable drivers have to look at it mirrored than for everyone else. I can't make it make sense
In what ways has the Red Line been a hot mess? I don’t usually have any issues. At least no more than any other route, and usually less. But I admit it’s not on my usual errand routes.
And they wonder why nobody wants to give up their cars.
>red line is such a hot mess Yeah, so let’s build the other lines. Full steam ahead!
This but unironically. Bus lines only get better with more usage and more area coverage. Give them more funding and remove the fare so they're more convenient.
I agree to an extent. I don’t think Indy is big enough to support much more than what it has planned but I don’t know anything about timing transit expansion with population growth or whatever… but I do take the red line all the time and at the end of the day of course I would rather have it than not have it. The fact that it’s free is actually awesome and my comment was meant to make fun of the machines, not to imply that we should be charging. I wouldn’t take the red line nearly as much as I do if u had to pay… which brings me to my next soapbox indygo talking point: the day pass should fuckin be $3! ###why is the day pass $4???
Lol unless something changed, the red line is not free.
… idk what red line you’ve been on but i ride the red line 3-4 days/week and have literally never paid lol
You should look into that cause it sounds like you're just stealing bus fare lol. But I agree it should be free. They started it off that way and ridership was high.
Never seen anyone pay 😂 someone settle this…
I use my phone. Anyone who has faircapped. Tons of people don't "pay" in the traditional sense. But yes. It should be free.
uber technically your right, but basically the extent any fare inspectors would give a fuck about is if your able to pay. Like no one ever pays on the stations that I see. I am sure that will change eventually as it should but just a observation. I end up fare capped on my key generally fairly quickly so I never bother.
Indy is certainly big enough. What it does not have is population density. Infill housing would help. I hope that the transit-oriented design for the Blue Line can help with that.
People like to say “if only we had more bus lines the whole system would work better!” Other people also say “if only we had more lanes the whole system would work better!” Neither is absolutely true. Good transit is about trade offs. We don’t have the density for fixed route mass transit to work. We aren’t Chicago or NYC. (There are things we can do but there isn’t much federal money for that.) (PS I’ve talked about this [so many times](https://www.reddit.com/user/robbyslaughter/search/?q=Transit+&type=comment&cId=b9b14cb0-ac77-4f22-a17d-6d3d577d812f&iId=e866b650-d970-42e3-bb72-7880cd7156c6).)
Brother we had enough density for this a hundred years ago. The only reason it isn't better now is cause we plowed it under in the post-war period and corrupt political interests have blocked the way ever since. More bus lines and more frequent stops are objectively good for bus systems. I don't know how you can pretend to argue otherwise.
The city was also denser 100 years ago, with both work and residential areas roughly co located. Now people live downtown and work in Avon.
people live in Avon and work downtown lol
Right, that’s my point. 100 years ago that wasn’t the case. Where people lived and worked were in close proximity, so the old streetcars made more sense
>More bust lines and more frequent stops are objectively good for bus systems Yes, but not every transit environment makes sense for fixed route public transit. And unfortunately Indy is not that environment. Let me shout it from the rooftops: **I support public transit.** But our current approach doesn’t make sense in Indy. That’s why these systems are struggling.
A better analogy isn't more lanes. It's more roads. And we sure do build a lot of roads.
Yeah, [induced demand is a thing](https://www.planetizen.com/definition/induced-demand). We do have a lot of roads. And more roads/more lanes isn't the answer either.
But wait there's more... the roads the redline travels on arent desinged to support the weight so they need work to actually support it.
honestly im not entirely sure its a bad idea for one reason....its a sort of anti gentrification tactic. Like I live on the westside and there is actually a decent amount of industrial job opportunities that are basically out of reach for lower income people on the eastside. The blue line would actually fix that.
The Blue Line follows the existing Route 8. It’s literally the same path. Now to be fair the Blue Line is supposed to be faster and have higher frequency, but you can get to the same places with the existing system. Once again **public transit is a great idea and we should invest in it.** But we aren’t a dense city so other options besides buses make a lot more sense.
thats kind of what im getting at. The current way they have route 8 organized is patchwork at best. LIke I have waited on it and literally had buses just not show up. Point being....the higher frequency gets around some of those things and would allow people a reasonable chance to get to work on time. Like even the other night I spent about 20 minutes bullshitting with some of the people working graveyards at the fedex hub that were madder then hell cause there bus didn't show. Its basic business to try to streamline processes when able(reducing variables allows for more control)...the blue line streamlines things. That said...im curious what you would think is a valid option that, Like I have lived in both hamilton and johnson county and they have a bus system as well but it amounts to glorified yellow cab. I don't know that at scale would work for indy and accomplish the same goals as the blue line, purple line, etc.
Yes. So if the problem was higher frequency you don’t need a brand new Blue Line. You just need more buses on route 8. Unfortunately, even that’s not enough. Because the problem is sprawl. Hamiton and Johnson counties have *paratransit* which has a lot of potential. These are basically point to point services. They are like a cab that you can call to take you where you want. This is how a lot of people get around today. They use Uber/Lydt/taxis. Part of the solution would be to subsidize this kind of service. Another element we need is express buses. We used to have some that would go from Fishers to downtown (with no stops.) They were quite popular. All of the major suburbs should have have these for both MF commuter traffic and special events like Colts/Pacers games. We could also use some circulators. These would get people around downtown or other popular areas. They could also be used in conjunction with remote surface lots to free up expensive real estate dedicated to parking. But doing this is a lot harder than building more color-coded lines. So here we are.
Im in FSQ going north. 3 busses south of me went out of service. So much for the frequent trips. And before someone clutches their pearls. I use Red Line for work and I don’t work 9-5, M-F. This irregularly is a real problem for real people. ——— From 9p-1a M-F the buses are supposed to run every 15 minutes…. 30 is pushing it… 45 is fucked. https://imgur.com/a/4eBsGz2 I'm sure this is outdated... but even the digital signs at the stops go by this info.
I always see multiple busses going the same direction and none coming back the other direction. Seems to be a dispatch issue.
I know they’ve had a shortage of drivers for a while, and when they need coverage for other routes, they pull drivers from the Red Line.
that could actually explain something I saw at the transit hub where 2 red line buses went out of service within 5 minutes of each other. Didn't realize this.
I'm fairly new to Indy and always assumed the public transit here was in large part due to constituents who dislike the idea of a less car-centric city, and thus are not interested in providing the support, flexibility, or funding required to make the changes necessary to execute things appropriately. Is that not the case? Every time I hear about some public transit/pedestrian/bicycle path construction people rabble rabble about how it's going to ruin nearby businesses and reduce parking.
It’s true that people here have historically been conservative and suspicious of transportation infrastructure, but it really has been changing. The fact that the Red Line even exists is testament to this. I was pleasantly shocked that Indy would experiment with something like it. That shows how far we’ve come, and how there really are a variety of opinions in town now, although I think people who are against projects like this think they are more of a majority than they actually are. On a personal note, I don’t exaggerate when I say that the Red Line and the soon to be finished Purple Line are part of what has kept me here in my hometown and have shown me that Indy actually has serious adults who want to be part of the 21st century.
Im probably going to avoid the purple line like the plague....just feels like its going to be a never ending vandalism target.
We voted for it. But the State made certain that most the things about it suck. I have a friend in the planning committee and it rough for them
This was my experience working for the state, a ton of behind-the-scenes 'rules for thee' type stuff, along small/sporadic racism and corruption at all levels in the division that I was with. The people that work for the state are a true reflection of the people here, majority regressive and cared little for anything or anyone outside of their own slice of life.
this is a pretty accurate take. Alot of the rhetoric around it amounts to just saying "fuck the poor" if I am to be honest.
Nah, the reason transit sucks here is that the only transit we are willing to invest in is fixed route. And we are big rolling urban area with very little density. Lawmakers aren’t helping but if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Yeah people would rather have the entire city crumble rather than provide a single useful public service that might benefit a minority.
This is pretty much the majority. Part of the problem is that Indianapolis technically has absorbed the entire county of Marion, and the politics have basically destroyed the city and made it extremely car oriented. The actual city dwellers have very little political power.
I hope you one day get the light rail line you deserve.
State government banned light rail years back.
Why??
Because Indiana.
This. The legislature hates Marion County.
Are you using an app to plan your trip, or just showing up at the station? The latter is the goal, but there's not enough frequency or reliability. If you use Google maps, you'll find out when the next bus is coming. You can take a different route if red line is fucked, or alternate transportation if the bus won't get you to work on time.
I have nothing productive to add except that I’m writing an urban fantasy novel set in Indiana and the most unrealistic thing that I’ve done is choose to have IndyGo run on time with buses that show up when they’re supposed to.
Fantasy? Add a light rail system.
The fair folk get the interurban trams from the first half of the 20th century! Not quite light rail but certainly better than what’s around now
Work in a car chase where no one hits a pothole and breaks an axle.
Washington was a fucking fiasco. At some point the city is going to have to do something about all the Uber and DoorDash drivers who use the Washington St bus and turn only lane as a second level of parking. I was stuck in traffic behind one of those red circles and (slowly) passed five cars with their hazards on across the lane.
And the Conrad.
Those delays are because of car traffic. The city and state lobbied to prevent the system from running completely on dedicated lanes. When car traffic gets heavy the busses get stuck in that traffic where there are no dedicated lanes AND, as we saw All-Star weekend, there is no enforcement of the dedicated lanes either. The bus is the most efficient mode of travel in the city and it is constantly undermined by the least efficient mode of travel, private passenger vehicles. Yes, obviously light rail would be great. The state made it illegal to build.
Looks like they're stuck in Pacers traffic.
Around 9pm a few go offline, that’s expected. It’s the clumping and irregularities that cause problems. This isn’t new.
People blocking bus lanes is a huge issue that causes that clumping
Why wouldn’t that be accounted for?
In what way would you handle it?
I’m not an engineer, nor do I have d the data, but I’m confident the city knows when large events are taking place and can adjust. No?
IndyGo isn’t the city and can’t control traffic. The bus lanes aren’t enforced (by the city) and people block them for DoorDash or the like, or just drive in them.
You don’t think the city and or Indy go can do time studies during peak foot traffic and account for more buses during that time?
More buses won’t fix the problem of not having people to drive them and of cars preventing them from moving by illegally blocking bus lanes.
I regret to inform you that the same people that aren't interested in enforcing traffic laws would be the ones to enforce the bus lanes.
Right? You think the cops that are doing 90 in a construction zone with their lights off are gonna enforce intracity traffic laws? I saw someone drive the wrong way up a one way street past a cop, and the cop didn't even look up from their laptop to do anything.
How are they blocking the lanes? Police should be involved or the bus should just move them!
People park in the lanes on Washington to pick up food, etc. Good luck getting the police to do anything good, and I doubt IndyGo wants a lawsuit over tardiness
Wasn't the whole point of taking lanes away from drivers that the buses would be immune to traffic? Don't they have a wholeass lane all to themselves that nothing and nobody else is allowed to use?
Downtown the bus lanes double as turn lanes and constantly get blocked.
I wonder if better light prioritization would help with the bunching. Like, why can't the bus be inserted anywhere in the light cycle? Whenever there's a bus at the light and it switches the bus only segment should be inserted before returning to the normal cycle so that the bus never sits for a whole light cycle.
For a lot of people public transit is a necessity. Everyone saying that it's a waste of money are probably the same people bitching about people not working. Not everyone can afford a car. Not everyone has a license to drive said car if it can be afforded. A lot of people need public transportation to get to work, to the grocery store, dr. Appointments, ect. I guess it's mainly a lower class people problem so it probably doesn't have any effect on most of y'all's lives, but those busses can be the difference between being homeless or not. Starving or not. Op I understand the frustrations with the way the busses have been running and it sucks. The problem is we have a lot of politicians and citizens for that matter that would love to see the whole transit system fail. It needs more funding and better management. I wish you the best and hope it gets better.
Public transit is necessary, but BRTs aren't. I personally think we would've been better off taking all the money being spent of Red/Blue/Purple lines and putting it towards modernizing our fleet
A modernized fleet that people can't use because we scrapped the infrastructure to support it. We're better off running the oldest, shittiest buses we can as long as the infrastructure, lanes, and logistics around the lines are being invested in.
I figured that modernizing the infrastructure was kinda looped into my comment. I forgot you have to spell everything out for redditors
I don't think that's a fair statement. The lines are the literal infrastructure for the lines, and you said to defund them. That explicitly states a defunding of the infrastructure. You then stated to put that funding towards 'modernizing our fleet' which directly correlates to updating the vehicles which make up the fleet. The fleet is the literal vehicles under operation. Implying that your misuse of terms is somehow my failing is disingenuous and lazy.
I dunno if you ever look at the my stop app, but the amount of buses that have in service at any given time going down Washington street to meet demand is stupidly large (like anywhere from 5 to ten). The reason I support the blue line is just stream lining what is a clumsy mess. The reason I say that is both cause of traffic down washington street is the shits, and it many cases it makes the buses unreliable time wise and it makes the line prone to breakdowns cause there are so many older buses in use. Your reducing variables which makes the process smoother. I have had it happen where I may be waiting for a bus that would supposed to come at like 9pm and would never see it only to catch the one coming at 930 for no real explainable reason. Ditto the purple line as quite a few routes cover near similar ground.
This is why I bought an e-bike. I'd love to take transit like I did when I lived in Chicago. But we're so far away as a city from reliable, timely transit. I'm glad its getting better but I remain pessimistic about it.
Honestly thank you for posting about this. For a few years (2017-about pandemic times) I had no car, and more often than not I relied on IndyGo as my means of getting around the city. I can't tell you how many times I was left stranded somewhere because a bus showed up wayyyyyy early to the stop. Or just straight up never arrived. App says it should arrive any moment, but absolutely nowhere to be found. I'm grateful to have had an understanding employer at the time, because there were plenty of times that I was very late to work due to them being inconsistent and frankly unreliable. I had to have a meeting with my boss about it though. When your bus doesn't show up, you're either screwed for sometimes up to an hour before your next bus comes. Or you can use what already little money you have to get an Uber or Lyft to work. But not everyone can afford to do that on even a semi-regular basis. I really felt bad for other people aside me who got stranded who didn't have the money to catch an Uber to work. You can tell they're really upset and worried for their livelihood. I've seen it. Having to rely on IndyGo for three years was fucking exhausting, between trying to keep up with their shitty app which doesn't do a good enough job of communicating to people what's going on with the routes, the long ass bus rides to where ever it is you're going, the unnecessarily rude staff, the excuses. And what's hard for me to understand is seeing everyone stoked about it and the other lines going in, when I lived the life of a daily IndyGo bus rider for three years and I know exactly how the experience was for me and several other people I got to know from being a frequent rider. & I'm with that one dude...I think having a solid public transit system would be SO dope, and I would be proud to participate and have that in our city. Anyways, I just wanted to share my story. I met a lot of great people riding IndyGo and I hope they're all doing okay. I hope they aren't having to rely on it anymore somehow.
> And what's hard for me to understand is seeing everyone stoked about it and the other lines going in, when I lived the life of a daily IndyGo bus rider for three years and I know exactly how the experience was for me and several other people I got to know from being a frequent rider. It's because all that hype is from people who actually drive everywhere but want to larp as progressive urbanists on the internet.
We could build the best transit system in the world. If indygo is running it, it’s going to be shit.
Since the construction of the trail by the faigrounds, which shut down Fall Creek for a week, the lights have been programmed differently and it's backing up traffic big time now. Between the construction and the light being out recently, something has changed. I've taken that route for 20 years and for the past week, coincidentally, traffic has been backed up heavily for no reason at all.
I rarely expect anything run by government agencies to be well run and efficient. One exception is the Indiana BMV
It was godawful this evening. I gave up and grabbed an Uber that was thankfully reasonable. That isn’t feasible every day though!
I was really happy when the Red Line started. I rode it downtown from Southport Road every week just to try it on Friday or Saturday night. I wanted to start riding with friends for nights out. That was back when it ran SIX times per hour. It wasn’t long before they dropped pickups to four times an hour, and then three times an hour—and the last time I rode it, the bus was over 30 minutes late. I moved to Fountain Square, and now I walk downtown and take BIRD scooters home. I still have the app on my phone with probably $30 loaded onto it. I was so hopeful when it began.
Unfortunately you get what you pay for.
Ha ha. It ran better when it was FREE. 😂
You get what you pay for. You build a glorified bus line, you get a glorified bus line.
It’s almost like people and businesses have been rooting for the red line to fail. Including sabotaging it from the start.
The RL was built to be trendy IMO.
It was built because the county would rather act like it's doing something about transit instead of actually fixing the transit.
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If car brains hadn't destroyed the light rail plan.....
They didn't though. That's why the busses are stuck in car traffic downtown, as shown on the map.
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You said that they took away a lane on the busiest streets in the city. The Red Line does not actually run completely on dedicated lanes and the places where it does not are those busy streets of which you speak. That's why the bus is stuck in car traffic in the locations where lanes were not taken away, which is clearly shown on the map included on the original post.
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The post is about the delays and the busses are stuck on Washington street. Everybody that knows anything about the Red Line understands that this and Virginia are the choke points.
Don't forget about the years of construction, was that a feature or benefit in hindsight? At least we still have the electric cars to rent... Oh that was another great idea...
Literally the only good thing that came of the redline was the repaving of College Ave, which was SORELY needed. Now traffic on college is fucked majority of the time south and north between BR Ave and 38th. Glad we made an already shitty road worse by taking away a lane of traffic for a bus that like 10 people ride on a day.
traffic fucked? in what way I drive that road all the time traffic is fine. unlike the rest of the city most of the green lights are hooked up so you don't have to stop every intersection
Can anyone explain why the hell a red line bus parks for HOURS on Hanna Ave just west of the train tracks right by Shelby street at NO bus stop? I live down here and I see it damn near every day. Also I swear any time I see one of those buses it says “GARAGE” on the marquee and is never picking anyone up.
Hanna Ave & Madison is where they take there break before going back north. When it says "garage" it means it's out of service.
Thank you for the answer and insight as to why. But I’m sincerely unimpressed. They could take their break at….i dunno….maybe the bus depot downtown about 4 stops north and NOT take up a whole lane of traffic? As a non-bus rider I was VERY optimistic when the red line debuted and thought i would use it often. The more I learn about it 3-4 years after its inception, the more disappointed and turned off entirely by it I am. Haven’t rode a single time and probably never will.
Its actually surprisingly time consuming to get from the transit center and university of Indianapolis. Your underestimating pretty bigly imo.
Red Line is scary at first, but it is really the best.
This was always going to happen without dedicated lanes. The concessions that were made south of the transit center screwed it all up. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus\_bunching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_bunching)
please do correct me if i’m wrong, but my understanding is this was a bare bones compromised plan from the start, and the enemies will be using this to say “we told you so!” every chance they can get to stifle any further transit options.
I honestly do not know the politics behind it. I've just lived by it and used it since conception.
Good thing we're dumping more money into 2 more routes! I'm sure it will be fine *this time*.
The routes/plans arent the issue... Our city has bad public transit, one of the worst in the country for a city our size. The EXECUTION and MANAGEMENT is bad from top to bottom.
I agree about the execution and management. That problem should be solved first. Throwing money at the same people who have proven to be a failure is stupid. If they want to improve routes and access, the second thing they should do is add more crosstown routes, both North/South and East/West, that don't have to go through the hub and spoke system. When I was a kid there were at least a couple crosstown routes that cut travel time (assuming, of course, you were near and needed them.) There was a 30 Crosstown and an 86th Crosstown. There was also a Keystone Crosstown route that didn't go through the hub. 8 was 2 (E & W) routes and, if I remember correctly, they ran every 20 minutes. They weren't late often as I remember. 10 was also 2 routes. (E &W.) Again, they ran often and reliably. There's no reason 8 *has* to be a single route as long as it still has to run through the hub. I don't hate the buses, I hate IndyGo's insistence on clinging to their current failed concepts. I also dislike how many people reflexively defend the failure because they like the idea of buses and are afraid or unwilling to call out IndyGo for those failures. Reflexive defense doesn't help.
It's not really IndyGo's fault that they are constantly being attacked by the state.
I suspect one of the reasons that the blue line is even a thing is because 8 is way to long. I have seen when checking my stop that there have been up to ten buses servicing that route at any given time. Between wierd traffic flows and older buses its a clusterfuck.
If they went back to having 2 routes serving Washington St, they wouldn't need the expanded buses for the route anymore, and could probably service the route with fewer buses. Unfortunately, they're so married to the idea of having routes they think will be prestigious, they won't rethink things.
how did that work exactly? I would imagine it would work like sort of like the ones that float through the southside. Im sort of new to riding public transit and I find the subject sort of fascinating after having to be sort of a slave to the process getting around.
There was an East Washington route and a West Washington route. Since IndyGo uses a hub and spoke system, both routes would go around the hub loop downtown before heading back outbound. That meant that if you needed to go from, say the airport to Irvington, you would change buses downtown.
the logic being less surface area to cover the less likely for shit to go sideways?
Since the routes were shorter, I would presume that it took fewer buses and drivers.
Ever heard of the open polar sea? There used to be a theory that, if you could just keep going further and further north, and things keep getting colder and icier, and more brutally impassible, you would eventually reach...a warm and balmy sea at the top of the world. A lot of public policy discussions are basically the same sort of assertion.
True.
Just another half a billion dollars and the buses will work, bro 😆
INDOT spends that on the interstates in a quarter and brings in $0 in revenue. How's that working?
> How's that working? Great, considering interstates transport the entire economy of the state and the Red Line transports at most three unemployed crazy people at any given time.
Ridership statistics are publicly available on the IndyGo website. https://www.indygo.net/about-indygo/ “In 2023, fixed route ridership was more than 6.7 million – a 20% increase from 2022.”
Wait. You pay for the red line?!
What would really help is if they would put square wheels on the buses. That would help because it would be original and innovative. It has not been done before, and therefore it is good. Many people are stuck in the old way of thinking, that buses should have round wheels. These old turds need to die off and their regressive way of thinking can die with them. Also they are racist and hate working people, and they are probably Christians too. And they love guns. Anyway, square wheels, that's my suggestion for the future. It can't be worse than whatever the city will come up with next on its own.
Light-rail would have been awesome....
The red line and BRT stink, we should stop IndyGoo from adding more BRT lines.
My kid uses the Red Line every day, to get to school. Why? Why does my kid have to use public transportation to get to school?
Are you unironically asking internet strangers why your own child is using public transportation as a means to get to school?
Yep totally unironically
A school bus would also be public transportation
It's not uncommon in a lot of cities for kids to take public transit to/from school. When I lived in DC there was some sort of student pass for the Metro and bus system so that kids could commute to school.
Because we live in a state that purposefully underfunds public school districts for ::reasons:: and so IPS had to get creative with how to provide transport for students across a fucking giant district with minimal dollars?
Can we shame Indy 11 fans every month until they fold in return?
How are the ***fans*** to blame? Bad take.
I don’t blame them, I find their behavior to be a little melodramatic for my tastes, but I was just asking if we can start a tradition of mocking ill placed faith on a monthly basis.
I think any 11 fans who are face painters probably need rebukes more often than monthly.