The official stakeholder response to plans for interstate redesign

The news item on page 5 of the September 2024 edition of Urban Times deals with feedback from neighboring stakeholders, the Southeast Neighborhood Alliance, affected by the next phase of the Downtown interstate reconfiguration and reconstruction. This is the full text of the letter sent to consultants and Indiana Department of Transportation leaders.

August 6, 2024

I-65 Safety & Efficiency/INDOT.

Parsons Corporation / 101 W Ohio St / Indianapolis, IN 46204 / – attn. Berry Craig

Project: I-65 Safety & Efficiency/INDOT

FHWA Project: I-65 Safety and Efficiency,

Des. No.: 1400073, et al., DHPA No. 29059   

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to you as a community resident and representative for the Southeast Neighborhood Alliance. The Southeast Neighborhood Alliance is ten Neighborhood Associations (Bates-Hendricks, Bean Creek, Fletcher Place, Fountain Square, Fountain Square Alliance, Garfield Park, North Square, Old Southside, Prospect Falls and University Heights), three major social service organizations (Concord Neighborhood Center, Southeast Community Services: SECS and Southeast Neighborhood Development: SEND-CDC) and two local business districts (Fountain Fletcher and Stadium Village). We are residents, homeowners, business proprietors and active community members on the Southeast side of Indianapolis. We pay taxes. And we vote.

We are writing to express our objections to certain components of the I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project [FHWA: Des. No.: 1400073, et al., DHPA No. 29059].

1. The I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project will unnecessarily widen and expand a federal interstate highway into and along ten urban communities on the southeast corner of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.
2. The I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project will increase the existing harm and further damage neighborhoods and communities that have already been negatively impacted, divided and disadvantaged by older federal highway construction.
3. The I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project has offered little in the way of any mitigation or improvements to the neighborhoods and communities that have been so divided and disadvantaged.
   1. I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project will say they are building a brand-new bridge with greater access for a trail and multi-modal transportation. But, they are removing an old and dangerously unsafe bridge so they can add lanes and widen I-65 at its intersection with I-465. The improvements with this new bridge are welcome but, they are the bare minimum requirements for new construction.
   1. The I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project will note that they are improving underpass connections, lighting and sidewalks. Again, this amounts to the bare minimum and fails to even approach what has been asked for. Their offerings represent responsibilities that INDOT could have upgraded and maintained for the last 40 years.
4. The ten southeast neighborhood associations, two business districts, three large community organizations and our CDC are strongly opposed to any outside widening (to the east) of the I-65 roadway (a 5th Travel Lane sometimes referred to as an “Auxiliary Lane”) between Raymond Street and the Morris/Prospect Bridge, then continuing north to the connection with the Washington Street exit lane. We are strongly opposed to the mandated widening of the Morris/Prospect Bridge. Likewise, the widening and expansion of the Pleasant Run Parkway (North and South), and the Naomi Street Bridges in order to accommodate this unnecessary 5^th Travel Lane.
   1. Representatives from these allied Southeast Neighborhood organizations have faithfully participated in the I-65 Project and strenuously objected to this unnecessary widening and the 5^th Lane since 2022. INDOT/Parsons has consistently refused to discuss any possible alterations to their plans.
5. We strongly urge INDOT/Parsons to fully and comprehensively address the safety, connectivity and quality of life issues with the nine (9) corridor underpasses: Morris/Prospect, Shelby Street, Pleasant Run Parkway North, Pleasant Run Parkway South, Naomi Street, Bradbury, Southern, Nelson and Troy Avenues.
6. We object to the exclusion of the Raymond Street Interchange in the I-65 S&E Project. It has been strongly urged from Day One that INDOT/Parson’s reconsider the constellation of problems and dangerous issues inherent in the design and condition of the Raymond Street Interstate/City Interchange. INDOT/Parsons refused to reconsider their exclusion of Raymond Street.
   1. Note: This I-65 Corridor Project is entitled Safety & Efficiency. The Raymond Street Interchange is one of the most dangerous and inefficient intersection/interchanges to be found in the entire State of Indiana. It is not safe for cars, bicycles or human beings who might be driving, biking, walking or pushing a child in a stroller!
7. The Neighborhoods and Community Groups have roundly supported the goals of extending pavement life and repairing bridges, as well as the added capacity: interior 4^th Lane.
8. The entire I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project is built upon traffic data collection from 2011-2012. The neighborhood advocates and community groups have repeatedly asked for new data and were told, “no.” We have asked to see and analyze the “old data” and we were also denied, though it has partially appeared in some recent documents. When we tried to engage INDOT/Parsons in a discussion about the need for a contemporaneous traffic study and assessment that would address the vast social and economic changes since 2020 (let alone the past 12 years), we were rebuffed. At one point we were told that they had looked into our concerns and that their “real time” data (which they would not show us) fully supported the need to widen the highway and add an outside traffic lane. This does seem sort of magical – “their data.” But, we were never allowed to have an open discussion. Never.
9. The neighborhoods, community and business organizations and those active in this public engagement process have asked numerous times to see the drawings and plans of the bridges that they intend to widen to the outside, due to the added 5^th Lane, as well as the underpass improvements.

We have not been allowed to see what these bridge widenings will entail.

1. The Morris/Prospect Bridge has clearly been designated a part of the ProPEL Indy Study (whose boundary goes even farther south on I-65 to the Shelby Street overpass). The I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project is predicated by a commitment to “not restrict or impede work that is a part of ProPEL Indy.”INDOT/Parsons insistence on adding a 5^th Travel Lane from Raymond Street north over the Morris/Prospect bridge and into the Inner Loop will widen the Morris/Prospect bridge and overpass by a minimum of 12 feet (also Pleasant Run and the Naomi Street bridges). This will alter the current Morris/Prospect bridge (Hardened Infrastructure!) for 15-to-20 years (as reported by INDOT/Parsons, CAC Meeting, August 22, 2022) and will thus preclude changing it in anyway. In other words, the I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project is removing from the citizens and communities on the Southeast side of Indianapolis, the promise that is being extended to them in ProPEL Indy: to be allowed to have a voice and input in how the Interstate highways will be rebuilt in the coming years.

– Viewed another way, the promise of ProPEL will come our way in twenty years !!

– That’s not what we had in mind.

1. The Morris/Prospect bridge already completely divides the historic Fountain Square and Bates-Hendricks neighborhoods, and it further isolates the bifurcated South Split communities from the greater southside and downtown center of Indianapolis.
   1. Our communities insist that this opportunity, offered to us in ProPEL Indy, not be restricted, impeded or completely denied to us by the I-65 Safety & Efficiency Project’s 5^th Lane and this harmful and unnecessary expansion and widening of the I-65 corridor through our neighborhoods. Nor should it be deferred for 20 years! We have entered into an engagement process with ProPEL to affect the infrastructure and quality of life and economic wellbeing now and for the present. This must not be denied us!

1. We fully endorsed Rethink Coalition’s I-65 S&E Consulting Party Comprehensive Report. We recommend this formally submitted, extensive report as a both a model of community engagement and a forward-thinking vision for the I-65 Corridor, the City of Indianapolis and Greater Central Indiana.

LINK (Rethink Coalition’s I-65 Consulting Party Comprehensive Report): https://static1.squarespace.com/static/651dd644120ff93e997f5b4e/t/656384a30bbe257465ba7a9f/1701020845941/230920_RethinkSAFE_Report..pdf

Respectfully submitted. Sincerely,

Bruce Colville / 735 Lexington Ave / Indianapolis, IN 46203

Cc: Secretary Buttigieg, U.S. Representative Carson, State Senator Hunley, State Representative Moed,             Mayor Hogsett, Chief Deputy Mayor Parker, Council President Osili, Councilor Jones.