BlueIndy

BlueIndy
Polaroid Colorpack II
Fujifilm FP-100C
2017

Most people need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. We’re wired to maintain the status quo; we just want things to stay the way they always have been. Or return to the way they used to be, because weren’t things just better then? I suspect we want an idealized view of the past, because that time makes sense in retrospect.

Indianapolis residents are generally not happy with the changes to transportation infrastructure here over the last 10 years or so. They shake their fist at lost driving lanes thanks to added bike lanes. They protest the coming rapid-transit bus and the corresponding loss of a driving lane on a major north-south corridor. They hope like hell the roundabouts that have proliferated in the county to our north don’t start showing up here, too. And they scream over the prime parking spaces lost to a controversial electric-car-sharing program — this one, called BlueIndy.

Presumably smart, yet certainly politically ambitious, people drive changes like these. Let’s assume altruistic motives. They’re trying to move Indianapolis toward a future they envision, one that will come whether we are ready or not. But such leaders have guessed wrong before, and we’re all happiest to have forgotten those failed initiatives.


Comments

4 responses to “single frame: BlueIndy”

  1. Bob Dungan Avatar
    Bob Dungan

    Jim,
    Pretty much same kind of things going on here on the east coast. Lots of toll lanes/express lanes and roundabouts, no electric cars that I am aware of. My wife hates roundabouts. I don’t mind them. In many cases they work better than stop signs or stop lights.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      FWIW, the roundabouts in Carmel are wonderful. I remember the mile-long rush-hour lines at the four-way stops up there. Those went away as the roundabouts opened. They keep traffic flowing!

  2. DougD Avatar
    DougD

    I love roundabouts, and bike lanes that get used. There’s also some bike lanes I’ve seen actual bikes on just a handful of times. Our city just approved a massive LRT project, hopefully it pans out and provides cost effective transportation for a lot of people.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      The bike lanes out here in old suburbia where I live aren’t heavily used, but I think that’s because there aren’t enough of them. To get to the one nearest my home, for example, I have to ride on some roads I don’t feel safe on because of narrowness and traffic to reach those bike lanes. Hopefully more will be put in and a useful network will emerge.

      In the old city I see the bike lanes get some use.

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