INDIANAPOLIS — Connie Schmucker believes Indianapolis has the potential to be friendly to bicyclists across the city. The "Bicycle Garage Indy" advocacy director is an avid biker, trainer, and route leader.
"In some places, it is very bike-friendly. In other places, it's not," Schmucker noted. "I think it's in pockets, and it kind of depends on where you live."
Brian Payne, the CEO of the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF) and president of The Indianapolis Foundation, agrees that Indy has great potential to be a more bike-friendly and walkable city.
Payne sees the potential and is working to make the city's pedestrian and biking infrastructure one of the best.
The "Connected Communities Initiative" is a project 7 years in the making. The initiative plans to better connect the city's historically underserved neighborhoods to nearby trails and greenways.
Since 2015, $61 million has been raised for the Connected Communities Initiative, whose number one criterion is equity.
"Black and Brown neighborhoods have been underappreciated and underserved in many ways, including with infrastructure — infrastructure investments — so the city's focused on that, and we're focused on that," Payne said.
Payne, the Indianapolis Cultural Trail founder, says the Connected Communities Initiative is a "direct outgrowth" of the Cultural Trail.
"The Cultural Trail was all about connecting cultural districts downtown. This new initiative is really focused on neighborhoods," Payne explained. "It's really focused from an equitable perspective on connecting Black and Latino neighborhoods into the greater sense of infrastructure."
The Connected Communities Initiative is focused on filling the gaps in our current pedestrian and biking infrastructure. Doing so will extend trails, create access, and allow for more robust alternatives to driving a car around the city.
At one point in time, the goal for CICF was to go out and build more trails.
"But we changed that by talking to neighbors," Payne said.
In partnership with the City of Indianapolis, Payne said he and his team instead asked: What's not connected but should be? Where is there potential for creating a more connected infrastructure to build communities that are walkable, bikeable, and have access to public transit?
"The goal is about where can we make the most important connections, where there were gaps. So a half a mile connecting to the Monon from the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood, that half-mile might be more important than 4 miles somewhere else," Payne explained. "So we looked at it from a lot of different angles, a lot of different lenses, but equity and really serving underserved and underappreciated neighborhoods (were)the top criteria."
Nearly 10 trail construction developments will be launched from the west side to the far east side for the Connected Communities Initiative. The initiative also includes four planning and design projects to improve walking and cycling safety along Broad Ripple Avenue, 16th Street, 30th Street, and 38th Street.
Construction highlights include adding 5 miles to B&O Trail that connects to Haughville, Hawthorne, and Fairfax on the near west side. Safety improvements include adding 1.5 miles of protected bike lane along Dr. Andrew J. Brown Avenue on the near east side, from 16th Street to 30th Street. Access enhancement planning includes Olney Street, from Pogue's Run Trail to IPS School 51 along Olney Street.
Some construction for these projects is already happening, for instance, the B&O Trail extension to Haughville.
The full Connected Communities Initiative will be complete in a few years. At that point, maps will be handed out to all neighborhoods impacted.
The Long Road to Connecting the City
There were no bike or walking trails in Indianapolis when Schmucker moved back to Indianapolis after graduate school in 1985.
"People still rode," Schmucker told WRTV.
"It's good for the environment. It's good for health, it's good for the quality of life, it's good for mental health, physical health. And it's just fun," Schmucker said.
The Fall Creek Trail, Indianapolis' first greenway, formally opened in 1991. The Monon Trail, undoubtedly the most popular trail among pedestrians in central Indiana, opened in 1999. The Indianapolis Cultural Trail, which connects all six of Indy's cultural districts to downtown, opened in 2013.
Since then, several bike lanes have been added to streets across the city, plus about 100 miles' worth of greenways and trails.
Schmucker acknowledges that Indy's infrastructure has come a long way in just over 30 years, but says there is still a long way to go.
"Personally, I live in an area where I can go out my driveway, go on low-traffic neighborhood roads, get on Fall Creek Trail, get up to Fort Harrison State Park, and go on nice bike rides. Not everybody can do that," Schmucker said. "You shouldn't have to get in your car to go for a bike ride."
Perhaps the most crucial part of this initiative is understanding this:If our city wants to adequately enhance and addi more trails to other parts of the city, we must first take an equitable approach to connecting what's already there.
"To be able to go from downtown to Garfield Park — which is the Pleasant Run Trail — and then all the way to Irvington, that should be a great ride. But the trail's in disrepair and it has a few gaps that are just really kind of a buzzkill. This Connected Communities plan should fix that," Payne said.
'Bicyclists have a right to the road'
As someone who not only teaches children and adults how to ride a bike but pushes for bicycle access, Schmucker is glad historically underserved areas around downtown will soon be better connected with trail extensions and bike-share stations.
"I would love it for the entire city to be bicycle-friendly," she continued. "And it will take a lot of dedication to make that happen."
Alas, patience may no longer be a luxury bicyclists and pedestrians can give to city leaders for more protected lines, better-paved sidewalks, and trail extensions.
Traffic-related deaths are soaring across the United States, and Indy is no exception.
Deaths are also disproportionately higher among non-white, lower-income communities, where people are more likely to take public transit and travel by foot or bike; and in more rural areas, where speeding can be more common.
The recent Indianapolis Ride of Silence honored those who have lost their lives while riding. The annual event has been happening in cities across the country for 20 years to advocate for better-protected paths.
This was Indy's fifth organized Ride of Silence, which Schmucker led. This year's Ride of Silence was of heightened importance for Schmucker and the BGI company, as they lost a colleague in fall of 2021 who was struck and killed at the intersection of 86th Street and the Monon Trail while biking to work.
"By all accounts, it's a dangerous intersection," Schmucker said. "And that is one of the busiest areas — 86th Street has 30,000 cars a day."
With the city's growing infrastructure, the bicycling and active transportation communities have also risen significantly. These groups continue to push for access, connection, and the implementation of safety measures. Schmucker says, however, it's on motorists to be patient with pedestrians and cyclists, just as pedstrians and cyclists have been patient.
"Bicyclists have the same right to be on the road as motorists."
WRTV Digital Reporter Shakkira Harris can be reached at shakkira.harris@wrtv.com. You can follow her on Twitter, @shakkirasays.
