EDITORIAL: Stop skimping on mass transit

The IBJ

   So-called legislative study committees are notorious for their lack of productivity. Issues no one can agree on or that have little support often go to these committees to die.

   We hope that's not the case with state Rep. Terri Austin's study committee on public transportation, which is set to convene in August to explore options for funding mass transit.
   Austin, an Anderson Democrat, is rightly championing transit alternatives as a quality of life issue. A good quality of life includes, among other things, not being locked into one mode of transportation. Getting around without a car is a choice for some and an economic necessity for others. But regardless of the various reasons people have for wanting mass transit, it's increasingly seen as standard equipment for an urban infrastructure. And that makes it an economic development issue. If you don't have it, it's a strike against you as people and companies decide where they want to locate.
   Cities from Louisville to St. Louis to Denver are planning for or already operating systems that give their populations transportation alternatives.
   In the Indianapolis region, there's no viable alternative to the car. The IndyGo bus system is underfunded compared with systems in peer cities. Its lack of resources translates into schedules and routes so inadequate that it's typically used only as transportation of last resort.
   But a federally funded IndyGo route between downtown and Fishers that is scheduled to begin service this September bears watching. The express route using luxury coaches will be paid for with a $4.5 million federal grant, which should be enough to keep the route going for three years.
   IndyGo and the Fishers Chamber of Commerce are working together to promote the route and to see that bus-averse local commuters don't let the opportunity slip by. The inbound target users are Hamilton County professionals who don't want to contend with the crowded morning commute on interstates 69 and 465. An equally important market is lower-income Marion County residents who could accept hard-to-fill jobs up north if only they had a way to get there.
   If the IndyGo experiment is a success, it will help mass transit advocates make their case for a permanent off-road system, such as light rail. But the obstacles to such a system will remain daunting until state lawmakers, who will have to allow local governments to levy a tax to help pay for any such project, begin to see the competitive disadvantages of our limited infrastructure.
   Austin and other legislators should be commended for championing a cause that hasn't been popular here in the decades since the state's once-cutting-edge train system was dismantled decades ago.
   We hope they can sell the economic upside of public transportation. And we encourage Gov. Mitch Daniels to take the effort seriously. If he wins a second term, he'd do the state a favor by applying to railway funding the same creativity he's devoted to roadways.