INDIANAPOLIS — On the surface, the announcement of IndyGo's plan to remove more than 500 city bus stops is undeniably jarring, but even a brief look at the Circle City's transit map will show you a system that is far from balanced.
"We are certainly hearing from riders who want to know where my new stop is going to be? What does it mean to remove these stops? And we really want to point people to the tools we've created to show folks where their new stop is going to be," said Faith Chadwick, IndyGo Public Information Officer.
That new tool is an interactive map pinpointing all of IndyGo's current 3,385 bus stops. 544 of those stops will be impacted by bus stop balancing, which involves stops being moved, consolidated, or completely removed for spacing. On several Indianapolis streets, bus stops are right on top of each other. These short distances means buses and other traffic are constantly stopping.
"I mean imagine as a motorist if you are driving and you had to stop at a red light every single block. It would take you a long time to get where you're trying to go and that's what were trying to remedy with this project is to space those stops out enough that it improves our on-time performance, our efficiency and makes the experience better for our riders," Chadwick said.
In some parts of town the issue with bus stop balancing is clear. On East Washington Street near State Avenue, bus stops are seconds apart, all within eyesight and walking distance of each other.
Which stops stay and which stops go depends on what is nearby, like schools and hospitals, and ridership numbers for the stop. Stickers will soon be added to stops that will be impacted, and IndyGo says in most cases, the change will only create a slightly longer walk to the bus stop.
"As part of this project the maximum added walk time should be about five minutes. Like you said there's a lot of places where this is happening where you can see the next bus stop from the stop that you're standing at," Chadwick said.
Information about IndyGo's bus stop changes can be found here: https://www.indygo.net/stopchanges/
