And while this is excellent news for the city of Indianapolis, it would appear that most of the city’s dim-bulb residents disagree. A poll on the Indianapolis Star’s website shows (currently) that 55% of respondents think that it’s a bad idea to use tax dollars on the Cultural Trail. (I can’t help but wonder how many of those 55% even know what the Cultural Trail is and how many of them have ever used the parts of it that have already been built.) 1400 applications were submitted for the $1.5 billion in stimulus funds for the Secretary of Transportation to allocate, and of those 1400 applications, 50 were selected to receive funds; and there were criteria, too - the funds couldn’t just go to any old project. The Cultural Trail’s website has a much more in-depth discussion, of the grant and the criteria used to determine which projects would be funded, than does the Star’s web site; and probably most of the 55% opposed don’t know anything about the criteria, either.
But all you have to do - if you’re the conservative Indianapolis Star, that is - is ask a loaded question like “Is it a good use of tax dollars to spend $20.5 million in federal stimulus funds on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail?” That’s sure to get people fired up, even if they have no idea what they’re responding to. If ignorance is bliss, then Indiana is without a doubt the happiest state in this fading republic. (Sigh…I didn’t even mean to get off on that rant. I almost wish I hadn’t seen that little poll next to the Star’s article about the grant.)
Click on the picture to get a larger image that shows how much of the downtown will be covered by the Cultural Trail once it's completed.
The Cultural Trail, once completed, will connect all four corners of downtown Indianapolis, including Monument Circle and parts of the Canal Walk; and it will also connect to the Monon Trail at 10th Street and Mass Ave - from which point you could theoretically walk all the way to Carmel, though why you would want to visit Hamilton County is beyond me - and also extend down Virginia Avenue to Fountain Square. That’s essentially eight miles of rebuilt sidewalks that effectively become deluxe double sidewalks with one side for pedestrians and the other side for bikers/skaters/etcetera, along with lights and landscaping and benches. There’s almost no limit to the potential upside; it’s a project that makes an already inviting downtown even more inviting and will absolutely help to make the city an easier sell for tourists, businesses, and conventioneers.
Every single person who lives in Indianapolis - and even many of those who live near Indianapolis if not quite within it - benefits from a project like this. Downtown is not out of the way for any of those people, and it’s perfectly accessible. (Anyone who says there’s no place to park downtown is lazy. It’s not even all that hard to find parking on Colts game days.) And even if the rest of it doesn’t do anything for you - everyone loves the Canal Walk, right?
(Now having said all that, I don’t necessarily think that the early-2012 timeline for finishing the project is realistic, considering how little is currently complete since work began something like two years ago. Right now, the only complete stretch is Alabama Street from North Street down to Washington Street - and I defy anyone to walk along that stretch of sidewalk and tell me it’s anything but awesome. The projection of something like 11,000 jobs that might one day be created as a direct or indirect result of this project might be just a tad lofty - but to say that the stimulus has not had a positive on Indianapolis is false. Just ask the construction workers who are going to have work for - at least - the next two years building the rest of this thing.)
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