Let’s be clear—I consider the decision by the city and Indy Parks to allow 24/7 use of the city/county’s nine Greenway Trails to be among the most inane, boneheaded, absurd public policy decision I’ve ever seen in Indianapolis.
The unilateral decision by Parks Director John Williams to keep Greenways like the Monon Trail open in the middle of the night used, as justification, not recreation but public transportation.
In a statement sent out late Friday afternoon (when government distributes news they know is unpopular) Williams said, “Extending trail hours will improve connectivity for those who commute via bicycle to and from work—especially for those who do not work 9-5 hours.”
What a bunch of bunk!
Indy Parks Greenway Trails are mostly unlighted, in areas away from occupied homes and buildings. They don’t have emergency call boxes and are rarely patrolled by law enforcement at night. The decision seems like another example of the Ballard Administration bending over backward to please what I call the “bicycle advocates” here in Indianapolis.
I don’t mind bike lanes and Greenways, but too many have been built for no rhyme or reason just to please a tiny number of city/county residents.
Parks claims scores of Broad Ripple workers ride bikes after the bar and entertainment district closes late-night. Allegedly these biking workers feel “safer” on the Monon Trail than city streets.
I’ve asked Indy Parks for documentation, data and facts. While I wait, here’s some hard facts on bicycle commuting in Indy. Bicycle advocates argue bike commuting is overwhelmingly popular in Indy. It isn’t. Just 0.4 percent of all Indy residents who work use a bike to commute.
The 2013 Census American Community Survey (ACS), reports a whopping 1,619 workers over age 16, living in our city/county, commuted to work on a bicycle. There is margin of error of +/- 518, meaning between 1,101 and 2,137 commute using bicycles. By any stretch of reality, just a fraction of those bicycling commuters would be on Indy Greenways, including the Monon, in the middle of the night returning home from work.
If I’m wrong Indy Parks, Broad Ripple Village Association, then share the data that makes your decision credible; not incredible.
One of the country’s leading research firms, Scarborough, estimates just a third, (33.6 percent) of Indianapolis/Marion County adults bicycle (virtually all for recreation) at some point during the year.
In our African-American community, the figure is lower at 27.2 percent.
My fear, which I consider very realistic, is there will be a horrendous crime on a Greenway trail overnight. A media firestorm will fuel public demand for more lighting and patrols. Even though the city doesn’t have the cash, the clamor will force a costly response, diverting precious resources, even as patrols and more lighting for our neighborhoods go begging. Poor priorities. Poor decision.
What I’m Hearing in the Streets
Rev. Eugene Rivers, the charismatic Pentecostal preacher from Boston who started the Ten Point Coalition effort there in 1992 and helped launch it three years later in Indy, never minces his words. And he brought some serious advice when he spoke to Indy Ten Point’s 3rd Annual Prayer Breakfast on June 4.
Saying how impressed he was with Indy’s Ten Point effort, Rivers challenged the Ten Point organization, the governor and mayor to convene the state’s business community to get moving on jobs for our community—not just summer jobs but full time ones.
Rivers’ city of Boston has a sophisticated youth summer jobs program, through the Mayor’s Office, that involves and engages the Boston business community—large and small, local and national businesses.
Embarrassingly, Indy is still asleep at the switch on summer jobs programs.
Rivers also warned Black leadership and the Black church of the dangers ISIS poses to the African-American community through their open recruitment, through social media, of alienated African and African-American young men.
That danger surfaced last week in an FBI and Boston Police fatal police action killing of a suspected Black ISIS terror wannabee. The suspect’s family and some in Boston’s Black and Muslim communities thought the police had acted inappropriate in the case.
However, the Boston Police Department has a new policy. If there’s video of such fatal police action shootings, they make them public.
The suspect’s family and the public saw the video which showed FBI and police actions seemed legit, though investigations are underway by other agencies.
So Boston, a city hit hard by terrorism, can show video of investigated incidents of police action to its community, but Indianapolis leaders continue to stonewall in not allowing the public to see the video of the alleged police shooting of Mack Long, which occurred on Easter Sunday.
In an eloquent plea on our WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos,” Long’s widow, Debbie Nalls-Long pleaded with community leaders and the community at large to demand the videos, one by a civilian and another filmed by a IMPD body cam, be shown. Hey, Prosecutor Curry and Chief Hite? What’s the hold up and hang up? Let Mrs. Nalls-Long and all of us see those videos.
See ‘ya next week!
You can email Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
