Eulalia Guzman lives on both sides of the Blue Line debate.
On one hand, the 43-year-old is a manager at Lala’s Cafe, a Mexican breakfast and lunch restaurant at the corner of West Washington Street and North Pershing Avenue. She’s seen past construction projects wall off easy access to the entrance and make it difficult for customers to visit the restaurant.
But Guzman is also a mother of three children, the oldest of whom is 13. She said she likes that the Blue Line project, which would reduce the number of car lanes and expand sidewalks, would make the area safer.
She said drivers on Washington Street only seem to pay attention to the stoplights, and everywhere in between is dangerous. In other words, she’s not about to trust drivers as her kids walk across four lanes of traffic.
“I have to cross the street to get to them to make sure they cross safely,” Guzman said in Spanish as she served a wave of late-morning customers.
While the most vocal debate over the Blue Line has been concentrated in Irvington, Guzman and others who live and work along the near west portion of the bus route have similarly diverse opinions. And as a bill that could kill the planned bus project makes its way through the Statehouse, residents continue to debate the pros and cons of expanding the city’s mass transit system.
Here, there’s full-throated support coupled with optimism about how the Blue Line project could improve the road. But there are also concerns about traffic buildup and lost business.
There’s also downright skepticism that this strip of Washington Street — where the roads and sidewalks are crumbling in some places — could ever see safer streets and nice roads.
Standing at the corner of Washington Street and Belmont Avenue, Kyle Williams complained about drivers not paying attention but said Blue Line construction would cause a headache.
And what about after construction?
“We’re talking about Indianapolis, right?” Williams said. “After construction? When would that be?”
Maybe no Blue Line after all
The answer to Williams’ rhetorical question may be that construction never ends — because it never begins.
A Republican-backed bill that would place a one-year prohibition on dedicated bus lanes for the project passed out of the Senate last month and will now head to the House, where Republicans also hold a supermajority.
IndyGo’s plans call for dedicated lanes for more than half of the Blue Line, which would stretch about 24 miles from Cumberland to the Indianapolis International Airport.
That includes most of the near west side, where the left lane would be primarily for buses, but cars could use it to turn left. An example of this on the Red Line is on Capitol Avenue south of the IU Health Methodist Hospital campus.
IndyGo says doing away with dedicated lanes — even for a year — could mean missing out on a $150 million grant from the federal government. Without that funding, it’s not clear how the Blue Line could move forward, at least in its current form.
IndyGo has paid $14 million so far to design and plan the project.
And it isn’t just about the bus. The Blue Line project would include miles of new or replaced sidewalks, crosswalks and street resurfacing — and anyone trekking along West Washington Street can see the need.
‘Half the sidewalks are busted up’
Josh Chitwood rode his bike west along Washington Street on a recent Friday morning on his way to Mansion Society, a coffee shop at the old Central State Hospital.
It wasn’t a long ride for Chitwood, a 29-year-old filmmaker who’s lived in the Hawthorne neighborhood for two years, but that doesn’t mean it was safe.
Drivers zoom along Washington Street, swerving to avoid the potholes and each other, so Chitwood sticks to the sidewalks.
“But half the sidewalks are busted up,” he said.
Chitwood is excited about the Blue Line — especially since it would provide more efficient transportation between downtown and the airport — and getting new sidewalks and better drainage would be a welcome perk.
Street conditions are a common complaint anywhere in Indianapolis. But the Indianapolis Department of Public Works has deferred bigger project investments on the street in anticipation of the Blue Line, which IndyGo estimates would come with $238 million in infrastructure spending.
Some sidewalks in the near west area are essentially unusable after rain or melting snow because of standing water and trash that accumulates.
Brandon Herget, the city’s public works director, said the department has completed standard maintenance on Washington Street. That includes potholes.
And Herget said the city has already spent about $5 million related to the Blue Line, including upgrades to two bridges on Washington Street to accommodate the added weight of more buses.
The bridge over Big Eagle Creek was upgraded in 2021, according to the city, and construction on the bridge over Little Eagle Creek is coming.
Aside from road conditions, Herget said Washington Street, which was once a highway, doesn’t see the same volume of traffic. It’s down from about 30,000 vehicles per day in the 1970s to about 17,000 per day today.
But reducing non-bus traffic to one lane each way — as would happen to most of the near west portion — is one of the most contentious parts of the project.
Those who want the Blue Line call it traffic calming; those who don’t call it congestion.
‘I don’t think it’s a big issue’
Azucena Arteaga is in the latter camp.
Arteaga, a 46-year-old cosmetologist and co-owner of Princesas Beauty Salon, said she’s against the Blue Line because reducing the number of lanes on Washington Street would only lead to more frustration.
“I don’t think it’s gonna favor anybody in any way,” Arteaga said as she cut a customer’s hair.
She predicted drivers would actually behave more dangerously by trying to weave through traffic and swerve around the buses.
Down the street from the beauty salon, standing at the meat counter inside La Morelos Supermarket, Guadalupe Pachin shared a different vision for how the Blue Line could change Washington Street.
Pachin, 41, drives to the store and likes to walk around the neighborhood while she’s there. This meat market is her favorite.
It’s already difficult to cross the street, she said in Spanish as she waited for her order.
So maybe, Pachin said, a bus lane would encourage drivers to be more cautious, and she could find peace while taking her neighborhood strolls — and on a usable sidewalk, too.
Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz contributed to this article. Mirror Indy reporter Tyler Fenwick covers economics. Contact him at 317-766-1406 or tyler.fenwick@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @ty_fenwick. He will be on parental leave until April 15. Send questions and comments about this article to Deputy Managing Editor Ryan Martin at ryan.martin@mirrorindy.org.
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