While a 25-year master transit plan for central Indiana now essentially excludes Boone County, residents here will have to decide soon whether they want to participate — and whether they are willing to pay for that venture.
“It’s a different thought process,” said Sue Ritz, executive director of Boone County Senior Services, which operates the Boone Area Transit System.
Ehren Bingaman, executive director of the Central Indiana Regional Transportation Authority, recently outlined the Indy Connect proposal to the Boone County Council.
While Bingaman said that Indy Connect is “the region’s most comprehensive plan that’s ever been developed,” the plan as now drafted would include only an express bus line to Lebanon and a light rail line to Zionsville.
No hearings on the Indy Connect project are scheduled for Boone County, however, for which Bingaman apologized.
While the project shows a mix of light rail, high-speed bus routes and improved roads, the concentration is in Marion and Hamilton counties.
Part of that is because only southern Boone County is included in the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Ritz said.
The light rail line to Zionsville is included because of an existing rail line, she said.
Ritz said CIRTA is to vote on the Indy Connect plan in the next few weeks.
“When do I think this will happen for Boone County?” Ritz asked rhetorically. “It will be years, because we are not at the top of the priority list right now.”
Transportation planners are more concerned about the metro region’s northeast and southeast corridors, and improving connections between Greenfield and Plainfield, she said.
“We are hopeful that in the near future we can work with IndyGo, work with Hendricks County, and work with Hamilton County, and be able to provide connectors to those areas for the general public,” Ritz said.
“That’s where we have to pick up the slack,” she said. The near future of rapid transit in Boone County will focus on making connections with express bus routes in other counties.
Ritz said the Indy Connect plan is “exciting, if people will buy into the idea they don’t have to always use their cars — they can ride their bike to work, they can walk, they can carpool.”
After CIRTA adopts a final Indy Connect plan, the next step in the $2.5 billion transit system requires the Indiana General Assembly giving counties permission to hold a referendum on whether they will participate in Indy Connect.
After that, county officials would have to ask for another referendum, allowing the collection of taxes to pay for the project.
“Where it passes is where those investments will be made,” Bingaman said. “If it doesn’t pass in Boone County, those investments won’t be made.”
Soon after Indy Connect was unveiled, Republican leaders in the General Assembly unveiled a roadblock.
Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, recently told reporters he doesn’t want the General Assembly to consider authorizing a referendum, because of the region’s weak economy and a fear of raising taxes.