The “landmark ordinance” seeks to eliminate traffic fatalities
The Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis group on August 20 labeled the past 10 days as the worst week-and-a-half in years for pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and fatalities. Seven people either sustained injuries or were killed by Indianapolis drivers in less than two weeks.
Perhaps even more troubling, WTHR-TV’s Lauren Kostic attempted to investigate potential causes behind the increase by speaking to bikers, walkers, and safety advocates.
Their resounding answer? “We don’t know.”
Visit almost any area in or around Indianapolis and you’ll see runners, bikers, and walkers milling about. The city is trying to create infrastructure to support its non-motorists (note that one of the biggest sections in this very newsletter is “IN Trails,” also reflecting a gubernatorial priority), but it’s not resulting in a decline in conflict points, nor injuries and fatalities. One could assume that this is simply part and parcel of large cities, but Indianapolis has a higher rate of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents (1.93 persons per 100,000 residents) than San Francisco, New York, or Chicago.
One particularly disturbing incident occurred on July 23, with a white SUV and a silver car careening into two adults and six children at the intersection of East New York Street and North State Avenue. After seeing a child ejected from one of the cars, witness Jehan Harden pulled the other children out of the smoking car. “We were just praying for the little dude in the street,” Harden told WTHR (the children all ended up surviving). Tons of Tires Southeast Owner James Williams, whose business is close to the East New York/North State Avenue intersection, lamented that speeding is a constant concern in the area. He praised the release of a surveillance video showing the accident, stating that “people need to see that, babies laying in the street. Maybe that will get somebody’s attention.”
Pay attention, they did. Such visceral episodes spurred recent action from Indianapolis lawmakers.
On August 12, the Indianapolis City-County Council passed Proposal No. 224, also known as Vision Zero. We’ve covered the rumblings of an Indianapolis Vision Zero proposal in past issues, but here’s a brief refresher: the ordinance’s passage sets an actionable goal to “eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries by 2035 while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all residents.”
Councilors John Barth (D) and Andy Nielsen (D), both co-authors of the “landmark ordinance,” believe that this is a huge step towards the Circle City lessening its less-than-stellar pedestrian and bicyclist fatality and injury statistics.
That may be true – Vision Zero is nothing if not comprehensive, and there are plenty of local changemakers who want to see it succeed. Just check out its long list of cosponsors: Councilors Kristin Jones (D), Jesse Brown (D), Brienne Delaney (D), Jared Evans (D), Rena Allen (D), Ron Gibson (D), Crista Carlino (D), Derek Cahill (R), and Jessica McCormick (D).
The ordinance establishes a 15-member task force, curated by Council President Vop Osili (D) and Mayor Joe Hogsett (D), which will be tasked with developing and implementing a Vision Zero Action Plan. Other involved parties include the City-County Council, the City of Indianapolis, local government agencies, community organizations, and activists. The city is also authorized to hire a full-time Vision Zero administrator to coordinate stratified departmental efforts. The task force will, eventually, present its budget solutions and policy recommendations for adoption over the next decade.
What’s the Vision for Vision Zero?
While no recommendations are yet set in stone, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization creates a Vision Zero Toolkit previewing possible actions.
“The Toolkit builds upon successful, already-proven safety projects in the region from right-sizing roads to suburban roundabouts and Bus Rapid Transit. The Toolkit also builds upon the IMPO’s existing funding and planning programs which work to implement infrastructure-based safety solutions across the region,” IMPO explains. Implementing a Vision Zero ordinance will require layers of political action, but the local planning entity’s package focuses on local-level suggestions.
How likely is it that Vision Zero implementation will prove to be a smooth process? The city’s lack of a dedicated funding source further complicates logistics. Vision Zero specifics won’t be fully addressed by the upcoming budget session, as they’re separate from “the annual budget process.”
Indianapolis voters haven’t historically proven to be the friendliest towards proposals that enhance street safety but cause headaches for motorists (read: no-turn-on-red). Indiana’s capitol city is, simply put, a vehicle-centric society, with more households owning three cars (43,000) than no cars (35,000).
If one wanted more proof, one need not do more than ask politicians whether we should reduce parking in Indianapolis and then observe the rhetorical detonation.
Our local situation is not unique. POLITICO’s magazine this week featured a national perspective on the matter in an article titled, “Right on Red: The Culture War Comes for Traffic Lights” The sub-head explains it all: “In Democrat-dominated cities, bike lanes and pedestrian crossings are taking precedence over cars. GOP lawmakers have other ideas.” The article details “another divide is driving politics in 2024: Republican motorists vs. Democratic pedestrians.”
But Back Home Again to Indiana.
The Indianapolis metropolitan area is sprawling. This creates challenges when trying to implement a large-scale plan that benefits non-motorists like Vision Zero. The uncertainty that accompanies it reinforces evergreen concerns such as extended commute times . . . and even more inevitable road construction.
Regardless, Mayor Hogsett took a critical step toward getting the Vision Zero show on the road this week. The mayor unveiled his proposal for Indianapolis’ 2025 city budget, which would grant the Department of Public Works the largest increase in funds with $246 million. According to DPW’s updated five-year capital infrastructure plan, 30% of funds would be directed straight to pedestrian improvements. Separately, new hires include the aforementioned Vision Zero administrator, a traffic supervisor, and an expansion of its dedicated trail maintenance team.
Mayor Hogsett underlined that the budget boost for DPW is critical: “We need to keep up this work until no one – regardless of whether you’re driving, biking, or walking in our streets – no one loses a family member or neighbor to preventable traffic crashes.”
The City-County Council Republican caucus responded to the mayor’s budget proposal by emphasizing they will “[work] with the mayor and council Democrats to craft a budget that spends within our means and prioritizes the duties of local government.” GOP council members also clarify that their priorities include “public safety and infrastructure” . . . so if any departments end up with funding neutered, that cadre may not include DPW.
As our Hannah News Service sister newsletter INDIANA LEGISLATIVE INSIGHT reported back in 2021, the Indianapolis Pedestrian Danger Index has steadily risen in the last decade, chronicled by the annual Dangerous By Design report, an annual analysis assembled by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition. From 2010 to 2019, the Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson metropolitan area was assigned a 97.3 Pedestrian Danger Index which is “well north of the 1.6 national rate and index of 63.3.” In the 2024 edition of the report, Indianapolis metro safety continues to decline, weighing
in 37 deaths higher in the 2018-2022 period when compared to 2013-2017.
Strong Opinions
Vision Zero isn’t a universally beloved measure by any means; it’s taken years to get off the ground. Detractors believe the ordinance’s passage will just create different transportation headaches.
For example, WIBC 93.1-FM talk show host Tony Katz, perhaps one of Indy’s most vocal opponents of Vision Zero, argues that supporters are “not being honest about what it is they desire … the issue is the people who decided that, somehow, the bicyclist is more important than the person in the car … because the objective, of course, is to get rid of the car. Vision Zero exists to get rid of cars,” as he sees it, which fit the national narrative we described earlier in the POLITICO piece.
WIBC’s Katz proceeds to explain that there is no way to achieve “equitable mobility” on roads designed for motor vehicles other than to “take cars off the road … [and] prevent people from driving.” He asserts that “equity” campaigns are often marketed as existing for the benefit of minority Hoosiers, but he believes Vision Zero will instead benefit “all of these liberal white people who want to tell you to ride the bus and shut up.”
Once the ordinance passed on August 12, conservative champion Katz had this to say: “This is progressivism at work and Indianapolis damaging itself … this is just about the green movement … I don’t understand why people aren’t treating this like a bigger deal.”
Katz, however, isn’t alone in his concerns.
Smaller-scale bills aimed at improving pedestrian safety to the potential detriment to motorists have historically faced opposition at the state level from the General Assembly, with the most recent example being this past session’s unsuccessful SB 52-2024, into which Sen. Aaron Freeman (R) of Indianapolis inserted an amendment that would postpone the installation of additional no-turn-on-red signs until July 2025.
However, the no-turn-on-red fight began long before that as you may recall.
In 2023, Sen. Freeman attempted to legislatively block the original ban on right-hand turns at red lights at all downtown intersections. He felt that instead of protecting pedestrians, the ban would “create confusion and congestion” and “[wouldn’t] stop distracted, reckless, or aggressive driving.”
Governor Eric Holcomb (R) agreed and signed Sen. Freeman’s revised bill into law. And Sen. Freeman would’ve seen his concerns translated into action too, if it weren’t for those meddling city-county councilors, who found a loophole by creating “pedestrian safety priority areas” that granted DPW authority to post signage at data-supported dangerous intersections (and in advance of the effective date of the south-side senator’s measure, if we recall correctly).
The Vision Zero ordinance has its champions, too.
AARP Indiana Director of Community Engagement Addison Pollock also applauds the ordinance, stating that it aligns with AARP’s goals of “empower[ing] Hoosiers to choose how they live as they age … safer, more accessible streets give residents that choice.” Vision Zero and AARP aren’t strange bedfellows: if you’re Black, disabled, or a senior in Indianapolis, your odds of becoming a fatality or accident victim in traffic-related crashes are significantly higher than the average Joe.
Vision Zero has another State House ally in Sen. Andrea Hunley (D) of Indianapolis, who penned an op-ed for the Indianapolis Star trying to combat negative preconceptions before its passage. Rep. Blake Johnson (D) of Indianapolis, a former city-county councilor, has also been notably outspoken in his support of increasing pedestrian safety measures throughout his political career.
Will Vision Zero Work?
There is evidence that Vision Zero plans can be effective, as controversial as they may be. The idea of eliminating all pedestrian and biker traffic fatalities has been around for a long time, emerging in Sweden in the 1990s, and has been adopted in many U.S. cities. Columbus, Ohio launched a Vision Zero initiative in 2023; and the city cut “fatal and serious crashes” in half within a year as they lowered speed limits in heavily trafficked areas and redesigned intersections and crosswalks.
A bit of temperance, however; recall that Vision Zero’s ambitions are not to merely reduce crash rates; elimination is the goal (hence the “Zero” moniker). While pedestrian and cyclist deaths in Ohio’s capitol city are trending downward, they are still in the double-digits annually.
Hoboken, New Jersey had better luck with its ordinance. Seven years have passed since that municipality’s last traffic-related death and the city – whose population tops 60,000 – has enjoyed a 62% reduction in serious, traffic-related injuries. Hoboken is one of few cities to meet the lofty expectations attached to Vision Zero.
To briefly return to that WTHR “we don’t know” answer – in March 2019, INDIANA LEGISLATIVE INSIGHT reported that the Governors Highway Safety Association – comprised of the state highway safety offices of the 50 states, territories, and the Indian
nations – blames “smartphone distractions and the growth of SUVs in the vehicle mix” for the overall U.S. increase in fatalities. There is a myriad of other citable concerns, a veritable grab bag of blame, but it seems, at least from WTHR’s limited survey sample, that pedestrians and bikers are uncertain how to lessen their likelihood of becoming a statistic.
Clearly, Vision Zero has a long way to go in determining how and where to best spend its funding.
Indianapolis Star opinion editor and columnist James Briggs holds a centrist opinion on the new ordinance. Briggs entered an X social media entanglement with Councilor Brown, a Vision Zero cosponsor who chided Briggs for idealizing “a car-based [Indianapolis] … you’re assuming that because something exists, it is eternal and intrinsic.” Briggs authored an opinion piece in response, asserting that “while Indianapolis will “be a car-based city for the foreseeable future … nothing remotely close to [a car-free utopia] is ever going to happen here,” Vision Zero is a “worthy idea,” albeit one that will “face political headwinds as it evolves,” he posits.
Briggs concludes his column with a reminder: “Improving transportation in Indianapolis means accepting the city for what it is and thinking realistically about what it may become.”