Zickler Associates


Zickler Associates Interviewed for Daily Journal Article on Transit Options 3/8/2003

Riding the rails

By MICHELE HOLTKAMP

The Daily Journal

mholtkamp@thejournalnet.com

March 8-9, 2003

Lou Zickler remembers catching a bus from his neighborhood on the south side of Indianapolis to watch a movie downtown with other 8-, 9- or 10-year-olds.

During the 1950s, his mother managed to shop downtown in the state’s capital city at least once a week, and she never had a driver’s license.

Central Indiana families had no problem getting around without cars because they relied on public transportation. The inter-urban rail system was reliable, convenient, cheap and safe, says Zickler, now a local developer and White River Township resident.

But families began moving out to the suburbs. They bought more cars, depended on them for everyday activities and never looked back.

For the most part, public transportation systems had vanished as the main method of travel in central Indiana by 1960. They have been replaced by hundreds of thousands of vehicles clogging the Indianapolis metro-area roadways every day. The vehicles pollute the air, cost an increasing amount of dollars to operate and waste valuable time away from work or family while stuck in traffic.

Getting around

When commuters really start to reject the idea of getting in the car and driving to work because of the hassle, they’ll start to look for an easier way to get from the suburbs to a downtown job, Zickler said.

What planners envision and are laying the groundwork for are options that give people time to read a book or plan for a business lunch during the quick ride to work.

Groups in the Midwest, including Indiana, are studying commuter rail options. Governments are starting to plan for those transportation alternatives now so that funding sources are available when the time arrives, said Ron Deer, a member of the Citizen Advisory Council for the Metropolitan Planning Organization. The MPO has commissioned a $1.5 million study to decide what corridors, technology and funding is best for central Indiana’s transportation future.

Someday, commuting families might leave their one car parked at home or a nearby train stop and catch a ride to work on a safe, futuristic, cheap and convenient train.

Not-so-hidden costs

Out of Johnson County’s 58,816 workers counted in the 2000 Census, 86 percent traveled alone in a personal automobile to work. About 5,200 carpooled, but less than 100 hitched a ride on a public transportation bus.

Those numbers come with a cost:

• Motor vehicles are the single largest source of air pollution, according to the Hoosier Sierra Club.

• Traffic congestion is estimated to waste 79 gallons of fuel annually, about $131 per year at today’s fuel costs, the Sierra Club says.

• A study by the Texas Transportation Institute showed that Indianapolis motorists in 1997 spent 52 hours per year delayed in traffic. That’s more than Chicago drivers spent stuck in traffic.

“Do the math,” said Mike Trotta, a manager at Sentry Homes in Indianapolis. “That’s a lot of your life in the car.”

But for now, the personal automobile is the easiest — and sometimes the only — option.

“Those of us who live in suburban White River Township don’t have any other choice,” Zickler said.

Planners say they can only build so many additional lanes onto existing highways.

“We’re not going to build ourselves out of congestion, that’s a given,” said Deer, also a Greenwood City Council member.

Driving ’til it hurts

They say two things must happen for commuters to turn to a rail system: Drivers must get fed up with the congestion and cost of a vehicular commute and alternative means of travel must become appealing.

“We do have a love of our car, and until it hurts it’s going to be a real challenge for light rail to be successful in our communities,” Deer said.

What will make it hurt? Deer doesn’t know if it’ll take $4 per gallon gas prices, horrific parking options or yet unknown consequences.

“You must get in your car to do everything,” Trotta said.

Besides just getting to and from work, motorists depend on their cars to have the flexibility to work late or come in early, run errands and take the kids to sports practices. Teens can’t wait for their freedom: driver’s licenses and first cars.

Trotta is a proponent of public rail systems after seeing the success of start-up systems in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. Now, he can’t wait to have the option in Indiana.

“It’ll happen one day,” Trotta said, “When people come to understand they can have some time back.”

Crystal ball-gazing

No one can offer a timetable of when Indiana’s rail systems might start to roll. For now, planners are using federal money to study what’s best for the state and to make pitches for more federal money in the future.

The MPO, a member-based organization of government and planning representatives, is three months into an 18-month study of rapid transit, named “Directions.”

The first phase, which will conclude this summer, will involve deciding what corridors a regional rapid transit system should pass through, such as Greenwood, Franklin and Bargersville, and what that system will consist of, such as light rail or mono rail.

The study includes Indianapolis and all metro counties, said Philip Roth, a senior planner with the MPO.

Most associate the Indiana Department of Transportation with building wide highways to carry speeding vehicles. The key to any good, complete transportation system is to have other modes of getting around, be it rail, highway or airlines, said Bryan Nicol, commissioner of INDOT and a Greenwood resident. Sept. 11, 2001 and its subsequent shutdown of all air traffic illustrated the need for multiple reliable modes of transportation, Nicol said.

Commuting by rail The commuter rail study shows promise as allowing commuters other options, Nicol said.

Light rail is an electric “new trolley” system that can travel in-street with vehicular traffic or on a separate right of way. Other commuter rail options include a self-propelled locomotive train, Roth said.

This fall, planners will determine specific routes. During 2004, the group will develop those routes into a regional proposal and timetable, applying to the federal government for money to proceed with engineering studies, Roth said.

The $1.5 million study is funded mostly through federal dollars, with a $300,000 kick-in from the city of Indianapolis, he said. Nicol said that government funds support airports and highways, so it’s not a stretch for the dollars to support rail transportation either.

The study takes off where the Central Indiana Regional Community League left off in the late 1990s, when the group developed a transportation and land-use vision plan, Zickler said.

Not all those who are part of the planning and studying have had a lifelong passion for light rail and some even thought new roadway construction was the answer six or seven years ago.

“I didn’t go into it as a light-rail zealot, and I’m not a light-rail zealot,” Deer said. “If it’s a solution, and feasible, and economically possible for the community, then I’ll support it.”

Commuter rail can’t make a stop every six blocks, Deer said, because it wouldn’t save commuters any real time from the vehicular commutes. On the other hand, it has to stop in enough locations to make it convenient for people to get off and on.

“What does it take to get John Q to use it?” Deer said. “When will they see that it’s not in their best interest to drive a car downtown, park it and then take it home? That’s a long process.”