Indianapolis, IN

Pete Buttigieg visits Indy to tout street-conversions grant

Published

11 months ago

September 1, 2023

Pete Buttigieg visits Indy to tout street-conversions grant

U.S. Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg spoke Thursday afternoon at Cummins Plaza in downtown Indianapolis, flanked by one-way streets that will be converted to two-ways under a recently announced $25 million federal grant.

Buttigieg, the former Democratic mayor of South Bend, touted spending from the U.S. Department of Transportation into his home state due to the $550 billion federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and gave kudos to fellow Democratic officials for helping secure the funding.

The main reason for Buttigieg’s visit was to discuss the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE grant, which will be matched with just more than $20 million in city funds. A total of $46.5 million will be used to convert segments of eight one-way streets into two-way streets.

Buttigieg said the support of U.S. Rep. Andre Carson (who hosted Buttigieg on Thursday) and his colleagues—and some support from the other side of the aisle—helped pass the $2 billion grant program even after “the political obituary” had been written several times.

The Department of Transportation received about $15 billion in requests for about $2 billion in funding. Indianapolis being chosen “speaks to the quality of this project and the vision of this community,” Buttigieg said.

“This city has so much to be proud of under Mayor Hogsett’s leadership,” Buttigieg said of the Democratic mayor who faces a Republican challenger in his bid for a third term.

Buttigieg told IBJ that seeing “the continued growth and trajectory” of Indianapolis is rewarding, especially knowing that the Department of Transportation has contributed to it.

RAISE grant, pedestrian safety

A map of the one-way streets that will be converted. (provided by the City of Indianapolis)

In the 1960s, conversion of Indianapolis streets from two-way to one-way helped facilitate white flight from the urban core and into the suburbs, Indianapolis City-County Council Vop Osili said in written remarks. The one-way streets continue to serve “the needs of people who don’t live in neighborhoods that those streets traverse,” he added.

Osili said the grant will “allow us to revive neighborhoods along high-speed, high-traffic one-way streets.”

Studies say two-way streets tend to slow traffic while creating more direct routes, visibility and the opportunity for more commerce. In Louisville, one study reported a 60% decrease in collisions while another reported a 32% decrease in crime on the shifted streets.

In South Bend, the conversion of a pair of one-way streets to two-way streets spurred $90 million in new investment, Buttigieg said.

The eight one-way streets that will be converted in Indianapolis, he said, have seen more than 1,400 crashes in about three years. Those streets will be “modernized” to include bike lanes and sidewalk improvements as well as being converted.

The project is expected to go out to bid in 2026 and be completed in 2027.

Street design is part of what contributes to pedestrian and cyclist deaths, Buttigieg told IBJ. Indianapolis saw a record of 40 pedestrian deaths last year.

This is part of a “national crisis, a dramatic increase in roadway deaths,” he said. Roadway design changes, like the RAISE grant will fund, are part of the solution, but not the complete solution, he added.

“We need to have safer roads, safer speeds, safer drivers, safer vehicles and a higher standard of post-crash care,” Buttigieg said. “Those are the pillars of our national roadway safety strategy.”

There are sizable communities that have seen a year go by with zero roadway deaths, he added. “We want to add to the roster of communities that realized Vision Zero, and I know there’s a strong sentiment here to safety that we want to support.”

Mass transit investments

The U.S. Department of Transporation has recently given IndyGo, Indianapolis’ transit agency, $19 million to purchase diesel-electric hybrid buses and $33 million to fund a garage at the agency’s new East Campus headquarters.

IndyGo’s bus-rapid-transit lines have relied heavily on federal funding, with those funds making up half of the $370 million IndyGo predicts will be needed to build out the planned the Blue Line. Those investments are necessary to give workers and students mobility, Buttigieg said, and generally have a very good return.

“Now you still have to do it the right way and it, you know, requires a lot of careful work to maximize potential, but I see a lot of potential and what is happening here with the bus-rapid-transit effort,” he said. Buttigieg met earlier in the day with IndyGo CEO Inez Evans, IndyGo shared on social media.

He noted that bus rapid transit is dramatically cheaper than alternatives such as light rail or a subway system, and said cars are often out of reach or not available.

“We have lived too long with people having very few options,” he told IBJ.

Key Indiana Bipartisan Infrastructure Law investments

Earlier in the day, Buttigieg visited The Idle, a pocket park overlooking Interstate 65 and Interstate 70 near Fletcher Place and Fountain Square. Construction of the inner loop in the 1970s displaced 17,000 people.

“Standing in that remarkably creative Idle Park gave me a sense of how that affected the neighborhood and made me even more pleased that we are now partnering with community members here to do planning work to envision a different, better future through our Reconnecting Communities Program,” Buttigieg told attendees.

A $2 million grant announced in February will fund a study on the possibility of capping the recessed segments of Interstates 65 and 70 in the inner loop, near the Fletcher Place and Fountain Square neighborhoods. Capping refers to building a type of deck bridge on top of a roadway to create new surface area for development.

Even though the federal Reconnecting Communities grant is just a planning grant, Buttigieg said, it’ll support community work to find a shared vision for a possible future project. In 2021, Rethink Coalition and the Indy Chamber put together a $2.8 billion proposal to rebuild the highways partially underground.

Outside of Indianapolis, he pointed to a $1.6 million grant for Tell City that will allow the city to stabilize a crane at an Ohio River port and a $7 million grant to create an railroad overpass in Hammond, where images of children squeezing through dangerous blocked railroad crossings received national attention.

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Indianapolis, IN

BLQ+ Pride Summer Fest returns

Published

2 hours ago

August 4, 2024

Press Room

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — After a five-year hiatus, the BLQ+ Pride Summer Fest event was held on Monument Circle on Saturday.

The event featured several shopping, entertainment, and eating opportunities.

“They are doing testing, we have food vendors, we have alcohol for the adults, we have folks who are selling merchandise,” said Belinda Drake, president of Indiana Pride of Color. “We have the ice cone shop for the kiddos, too.”

The day is created to honor and celebrate Black, Queer joy in the city and state overall.

One of the vendors who came out to sell items and celebrate alongside the community is Nakeya Harris, the owner of Meraki Mobile Boutique. Her shop carries women’s clothing items, with a specific focus on statement items with bright colors. She also carries jewelry and additional staples.

“I enjoy people expressing themselves and being free, so I wanted to be a part of that,” Harris said.

Local LifeJourney Church was also in attendance at the event. They aim to extend a safe space for worship to anyone interested.

“Today we are trying to reach out to communities of color and just say we have a welcoming space where people can come and be themselves

Though it is the first event of its kind since 2019, the Summer Fest is set to return to Monument Circle next year, and for many years to come.

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Indianapolis, IN

Todd’s Take: Home Cooking? Indiana Needs To Clean Its Big Ten Tournament Plate In Indy

Published

10 hours ago

August 3, 2024

Press Room

Todd’s Take: Home Cooking? Indiana Needs To Clean Its Big Ten Tournament Plate In Indy

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – On Wednesday, white smoke finally hovered over Big Ten headquarters in Rosemont, Ill., as the conference revealed its future plans for the Big Ten Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments.

If you’re a Big Ten-mad basketball fan who resides in Indiana, you’re happy. Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis will host both the men’s and women’s tournaments twice each between 2025 and 2028. The Fieldhouse will host both tournaments in 2025.

Spanning all 3 time zones across the Big Ten!
Here are the hosts for the 2025-2028 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments: https://t.co/lDiAEA5oVI#B1GMBBT l #B1GWBBT pic.twitter.com/clkRFmWP7O
— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) July 31, 2024
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In theory, you’d think having the Big Ten Tournament right in the heart of Hoosier country would create a home-court advantage for the cream-and-crimson. You’d think that Fieldhouse moments would be part of the collective memories of candy-striped fans statewide.

But let’s partake in a short exercise. What is Indiana’s greatest Big Ten Tournament moment in the Circle City in men’s basketball? I’ll give you a moment to think about it.

That’s right, dig deep. Keep mining the recesses of your mind. Why do I hear crickets?

As I clear the cobwebs in my own head, in terms of good things that happened to Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament in Indy, I can only think of the 2022 run when the Hoosiers saved their NCAA Tournament bacon with a 2-1 performance.

Included were two of the three games Indiana has won by five points or less in Big Ten Tournament games played in Indianapolis – a five-point victory over Michigan and a two-point thriller against top-seeded Illinois. (The other was a 2006 five-point victory over Wisconsin.)

Past that? The cupboard is bare. There are infamous moments that jump to mind, such as former Hoosier Luke Recker’s heart-shattering buzzer-beater for Iowa in a 2002 semifinal in the first Big Ten Tournament played in Indy. Soon-to-be-outgoing coach Archie Miller was lustily booed in the tournament’s lone appearance at Lucas Oil Stadium in 2021.

There is infamy that had nothing to do with Indiana, such as the bizarre 2020 Big Ten Tournament game against Nebraska, where it seemed the entire nation seemingly coalesced during that game to the grim reality that COVID-19 was about to alter all of our lives.

Only in Indiana’s checkered Big Ten Tournament history could the Hoosiers win and not advance.

Past that, Indiana has largely entered and exited anonymously in the Circle City. The Hoosiers’ all-time Big Ten Tournament record in Indy is 7-11. Indiana has beaten a grand total of one ranked foe (No. 16 Illinois, 2022) among those seven victories.

The Hoosiers have had six one-and-done appearances at the Fieldhouse. Even if you exclude the 2008-10 post-probation period when the Hoosiers were mired in losing, that still leaves three other instances where cream-and-crimson tails were firmly planted between legs in front of the home folks.

The women don’t escape scrutiny, either. Indiana’s women have been better than the men – Heather Cassady and Jill Chapman led the Hoosiers to their lone Big Ten Tournament championship at the Fieldhouse in 2002. Teri Moren coached the 2022 team to the championship game at the Fieldhouse. But apart from that? Not much considering the women’s tournament has been played in Indianapolis far more often than the men’s tournament.

Indiana’s women are 19-24 all-time in the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis and have 12 one-and-done appearances.

Indiana fans show their support on a late Indiana run, Thursday, March 10, 2022, during Big Ten tournament men’s action from Indianapolis Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Indiana won 74-69. / Robert Scheer/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

None of this is for lack of enthusiasm at the gate. Every Indiana Big Ten Tournament game I’ve been to in Indianapolis has been a Hoosier Nation takeover. Indiana fans always show up, it’s what they do, but in Indy, it’s almost never reciprocated with on-court success.

So why does Indiana struggle in the Big Ten Tournament in Indy? Part of it is Indiana’s uneven seasons in general since the tournaments began in 1995 (women) and 1998 (men), but even good Hoosiers teams have stumbled in Indy.

The 2016 Big Ten regular season men’s champions are one example as they went one-and-out. Indiana’s 2021 Elite Eight women’s team didn’t win in Indy, either.

Where the men are concerned, perhaps part of it is historical indifference. Bob Knight was famously opposed to the tournament’s very existence and that attitude has possibly settled in among fans who recall his stance.

Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve heard many (any?) Indiana fans put an emphasis on the Big Ten Tournament, apart from seasons where the Hoosiers had to win to get a NCAA Tournament berth. The vibe is that this is a program that has bigger fish to fry, in particular, the elusive sixth banner.

Well, sometimes reality slaps you in the face with the truth that you have to walk before you can run. Indiana’s .395 winning percentage in the Big Ten Tournament is only ahead of Northwestern’s among schools that have been in the conference since the inception of the tournament. Let that wash over you.

That dubious distinction alone should spur Indiana fans into giving this tournament a bit more emotional emphasis, but there’s something to be said for the enthusiasm a tournament run generates, too.

I was there for the Purdue men’s win in 2023 in Chicago as well as the Iowa women’s and Illinois men’s wins in 2024 in Minneapolis. The Big Ten Tournament championship didn’t define any of their seasons, but it undoubtedly added some spice.

For the 2024-2025 season, Indiana’s men’s and women’s teams will both be capable of making noise at the Fieldhouse. The in-arena support will be there. Home cooking for the Hoosiers will be served up piping hot.

It’s long past time for the Hoosiers to clean their Big Ten Tournament plate in their home state.

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Indianapolis, IN

Indiana Grown: 8th Day Distillery

Published

17 hours ago

August 3, 2024

Press Room

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Each and every Saturday, WISH-TV highlights a local company together with our partners at Indiana Grown.

This week, Jaime and Matt Lamping with 8th Day Distillery in Indianapolis joined News 8 at Daybreak.

The Lampings share with News 8 what started their passion for the distillery, and elaborate on how Indiana’s state laws at the time impacted their plans.

They also share more about their Bottle Shop & Cocktail Bar, which recently celebrated its sixth anniversary. They discuss their various workshops and show off new releases ready to hit your shelves this year.

Watch the full interview above to learn more.

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