The Indianapolis Business Journal has put the public transit issue on the front page in the July 13-19 edition.  Reporter Lindsey Erdody presents the many opportunities and roadblocks in fashioning a public transit bus system connecting parts of Hamilton County to the Indianapolis metro area.

It is clear from her interview quotes that county elected officials are very wary of the transit issue.  Even in Carmel, which stands to benefit from the first proposed bus route, the Red Line, the city council voted down spending $200,000 to qualify for federal matching grants in completing the $2 million preliminary work on the Red Line.

The scenarios put together by the Hamilton County Transit Forum show the Red Line running from Westfield’s Grand Park, through Carmel, then south to Marion County, as the first phase is completed in 2018.  The Green Line, mapped to start in Noblesville south through Fishers and on to the Indy area, is a project set for 2025 completion.

These timelines assume the passage of a transit referendum in the November, 2016 general election.  Sources have been telling me for months that some private polling has been done on how a referendum would do in Hamilton County, and that polling has not been encouraging.  Bottom line, there is no guarantee such a referendum would pass.

The referendum would call for an income tax increase ranging from 0.1% up to 0.25%.  The larger the tax increase, the more comprehensive the service.

With Fishers scheduled for a transit system no earlier than 2025, local officials here have been hesitant to push for a system that would not be in the offing for ten years, while Westfield and Carmel would be implementing their system as early as 2018 (if all goes according to plan, and that’s a very big if).

I would encourage you to read Lindsey’s story in the IBJ if you are a subscriber.  If you don’t have an IBJ subscription, find it on a newsstand.  It is a good update on the status of mass transit proposals in the northern suburbs of Indy.