It’s not every day that a data visualization earns a round of applause from a room full of people.
But that’s exactly what happened on Tuesday night as Community Heights residents finally learned the results of an effort to slow down traffic racing through their neighborhood.
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Last summer, the neighborhood installed more than two dozen temporary barriers along two stretches of road: for about a mile along East 10th Street and for about one block along East 16th Street. The barriers were used to reduce the width of lanes and to prevent vehicles from passing in the center turn lanes.
And while data about the stretch on 16th Street showed mixed results, the project along 10th Street accomplished exactly what neighborhood leaders had dreamed.
The barriers lowered the speed at which most drivers felt comfortable — a measure engineers use to determine speed limits — from roughly 42 mph to 37 mph. The posted speed limit is 35 mph.
Those slower speeds can mean the difference between life and death. The average risk of death for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle increases from 25% when the vehicle is traveling at 32 mph to 50% when it’s going 42 mph, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
The number of crashes dropped as well. Between August and October 2022, there were 30 crashes between Arlington and Emerson avenues. During the same time period in 2023, with the barriers installed, there were just eight, a 73% decrease.
Leslie Schulte, a 35-year-old engineer and, until recently, the president of the Community Heights Neighborhood Organization, described the effects of the project to about 50 residents gathered inside Lutherwood Chapel on the east side.
“This suggests three out of four crashes on 10th Street are preventable with design changes,” Schulte said.
Residents surveyed by the neighborhood organization overwhelmingly said they felt safer.
Dick Close, 73, lives on 10th Street where the barriers were installed. At first he didn’t like the look of them, Close told Mirror Indy, but he saw over time how they slowed traffic.
“Everyone knew we had a problem, but nobody knew what to do with the problem. So it was very much a welcomed sight to see Community Heights pick the ball up and go with it and try to find a solution,” he said.
New city program seeks solutions
Community Heights’ project was one of the city’s first, and its most ambitious, tactical urbanism projects, made possible by a program established in 2022 that allows the city to issue permits to test temporary infrastructure changes.
City government officials work with residents to design a project and gather data to see if changes lead to the desired outcome — that is, do they make the roads safer? That data informs future infrastructure changes where the projects took place.
It’s one part of a larger project to make streets safer in a city where more than 150 pedestrians and cyclists have been killed since the beginning of 2020, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization’s dashboard.
Damon Richards, with Health by Design, the nonprofit that helped Community Heights secure grants for the project, said the results were “amazing.”
But, Richards said, the process exposed a big issue.
“If you do a tactical urbanism project, it’s supposed to prove a concept. This concept is proven, but we don’t have a process in place to make it permanent,” Richards said. “I know that there’s a lot of work going on to figure that out, but it seems like we should have thought about that.”
Kyle Bloyd, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works, said the city does not plan to install permanent barriers along the road. Last year, the city announced a five-year, $1.1 billion infrastructure plan, but that did not include major improvements on 10th Street.
“Community Heights has really, really great data, so we are collecting that data and that will definitely inform future design on 10th Street,” Bloyd said. “The type of change Community Heights is getting at is better suited for an entire road rehabilitation. That’s part of a fuller budget process.”
Bloyd said the department is pursuing less expensive installations, such as crosswalk warning signs, flashing beacons or pedestrian curb ramps, at eight “pedestrian crash focus areas,” including some near and along 10th Street. Those items, which take less time to install, cost around $1 million to $2.5 million and fit within the city’s existing plan to reduce the number of pedestrians who are struck by vehicles.
The budget constraints are caused, in part, by the state’s funding formula, which doesn’t account for traffic volume or the number of lanes on a road.
“That has a compounding effect,” said City-County Councilor Andy Nielsen, who represents District 14 including Community Heights and parts of Irvington. Nielsen cited two obstacles: political will and money.
“It’s incumbent on people like me, a city councilor, to make sure that the administration, DPW, are being attentive to these kinds of things,” said Nielsen, who began his term this month and now serves on the Public Works Committee. “We have to also face the reality that we don’t have enough money to turn a road over like that.”
Community Heights aims higher
Although the city does not have plans to make any major improvements on 10th Street in the near future, Schulte encouraged her Community Heights neighbors to help the organization aim higher.
For example, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, earmarked $5 billion over five years to be spent on local initiatives to prevent deaths and serious injuries on roads and streets. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, also set aside $3.2 billion for Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants to be spent on “projects that improve walkability, safety and affordable transportation access.”
To secure the federal funding, Schulte said that the neighborhood would have to think beyond the small stretch of road that was part of the study. She said she is seeking support from other organizations along 10th Street to convince funders that the road, which has some of the highest IndyGo bus ridership in the city, is important not just locally, but regionally as well.
“One mile is not gonna do it. But maybe 10 miles would,” Schulte said. “Maybe what we need is a Cultural Trail-like sidewalk from the North Split to 10th and Cumberland. There are lots of areas where there are no sidewalks. Let’s make that argument to the eastside folks that we know.”
In the short term, Schulte said she is helping other neighborhoods apply for their own tactical urbanism permits. She is scheduled to lead a webinar on the topic this month, and one such project to install temporary barriers had already been completed at George W. Julian School 57 in Irvington near the site of a 2021 crash that killed 7-year-old Hannah Crutchfield.
The Department of Public Works plans to use the Irvington data during road redesigns as part of the Blue Line project, according to Daniel Stevenson, administrator of strategy and technology.
The department also plans to install flexible bollards in response to another tactical urbanism project along Illinois Street where it intersects with 12th Street to protect the bike lane where cars turn onto the interstate.
Stevenson said the city took a lot away from the experience working with Community Heights, and he hoped that would translate into more tactical urbanism projects.
“What we would like to see is continued growth in the program,” Stevenson said. “What we are really seeking here is community engagement, as our community members are going to know the problems they are facing better than anyone else.”
As part of that effort, the department said it would begin splitting the cost of tactical urbanism projects 50-50 with community groups this spring. By contrast, Community Heights was on the hook for the full $120,000 cost of last year’s project, which Schulte said was covered by a combination of grants, including a state grant for tactical urbanism.
Residents interested in pursuing a tactical urbanism project in their neighborhood can learn more on the city’s website or email reimagineROW@indy.gov.
Mirror Indy reporter Emily Hopkins uses data to write stories about people. Contact them at 317-790-5268 or emily.hopkins@mirrorindy.org. Follow them on most social media @indyemapolis.
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