For too long we've discarded one neighborhood or business district to build another, leaving neighborhoods to slowly decay both physically and socially. We pay the costs every day...crime fighting and social services for those left behind, finite infrastructure resources spread ever more thin resulting in poor service everywhere, increasing fuel and time costs for families who move farther and farther away, and increasing congestion and environmental degredation.

 

We can't keep doing this...quite simply we can't afford it. To be sure, the costs are not borne equally, and in the short term parts of our region may prosper while others decay. But it is not sustainble--what good is a healthy brain if it's part of a body infected with disease? Whether we live in Fishers or Fountain Square, Avon or Irvington, Greenwood or Geist, we're all in this boat together. We've all got paddles, and if someone isn't paddling like they used to, it makes us all work harder. The rise and fall of our region depends on our collective competitiveness.

 

We have a chance to change how our region grows. Investment in a regional rapid transit network is a major step in our growth. We're not a partnership debating the need for transit. There are plenty of other organizations and venues more appropriate for that discussion. We're here to discuss how we can get the most bang for our buck if such a system is built. We have a chance to reclaim neighborhoods, to plan for the inevitable demise of big-box districts, and to think ahead about how we might change the way we do business so the places we build last longer. Growth is good. But to be sustainable, it has to be more than a shell game that cannabalizes one area to benefit another, which itself will be canabalized a few decades later.

 

We don't look at transit as a social service as it's typically viewed in America or even as a public utility as it's typicaly viewed in Europe. We view it as a way to invest in our future. Just as roads, highways, and sewer infrastructure spur economic vitality, transit will spur private investment above and beyond the public funds put into a system. You can only add onto a factory so much before you need a bigger power line and bigger pipes. Those things cost money up front but are necessary investments to make more of what you make.

 

It's a big exercise. Strategizing about how all this might play out around 22nd Street and the Monon is just the beginning.