This week we’re joined by Austin Gibble, currently of Stantec but formerly of the City of Indianapolis and IndyGo.
We chat about the history of planning for BRT in Indy, the Cultural Trail bike network, transit and infrastructure costs and the interpersonal relationships that can make or break projects.
Scroll down below the audio player for an edited excerpt of our conversation, or click here for an unedited, AI-generated transcript of the entire conversation.
Jeff Wood: What’s something that you learned that you think other folks around the country should know before embarking on doing their own BRT projects?
Austin Gibble: Community buy-in and engagement is crucial at the outset. I’m really personally blown away by these agencies that are releasing transit plans and then hosting referendums within six months.
The Central Indiana Transit Task Force released its plan in 2009 and we didn’t have a referendum until 2016. We had six years of outward engagement and constant feedback from the communities. There were hundreds and hundreds of public meetings to develop a transit plan that residents and the people believed would work for them.
Is everyone happy? No, never. You’re never going to make everyone happy. Quite honestly, I think if someone isn’t a little P.O.'ed, you probably haven’t done a good job. Transit should be going into the places that are most active. Is it a little bit disruptive? Yes. But is it effective? Absolutely.
Jeff Wood: Although it is tough when you have a certain legislator — I’m going to say this myself — it’s a little tough when you have a certain legislator who is one of those individuals who is not into it, but...
Austin Gibble: Certainly, but you know, it was that community buy-in and that community support that really took the project across the finish line.
Without that community support, I don’t know if the project would have survived. It’s certainly not a revolutionary idea that you need to go out into neighborhoods that have been historically marginalized and talk to them and meet them where they are. That in itself is very challenging getting the word out is hard, especially in these environments in which people may not be as connected to social media, or maybe they’re not consuming traditional media like TV or radio in which they might hear announcements for these kinds of meetings. And so we did go out, there were door knocking efforts. There were mailers.
We organized multiple meetings through different hours of the day, and we really put a huge emphasis on partnering with organizations that had ties to unofficial leadership within the community. Who are the individuals that the neighborhoods sees an elder and trust? And those are important people to identify and get their buy in because people listen to them.
For the case of the Purple Line specifically, which I was most close to, that included the Community Alliance for the Far East Side, otherwise known as CAFE. It included multiple houses of worship. Pastors, other community based organizations — we use those informal networks to identify individuals who have influence within the neighborhood and who know the little ins and outs of neighborhood issues that maybe, as me, a relatively, middle class white guy who doesn’t spend a lot of time in these neighborhoods, I need to understand their lived experiences and how we can take that lived experience and apply that to our design, apply that to our general philosophy of transit planning and ensure that the final deliverable is something that is truly meaningful to the neighborhood.
Jeff Wood: Do you have an example of that? Something that popped up during the process where you were like, "Oh, I had no idea that this was a thing and we need to do something about it."
Austin Gibble: So that’s a great question. Interestingly, we got a lot of comments about persons traveling across 38th Street instead of over it. And so we took that feedback and looked at our design and said, "How can we retain access through the corridor as much as possible, but keep the high quality design and performance of center running bus rapid transit?" And through that design, we were actually able to develop some unique cross-section configurations that did enable left turns without impeding or endangering the flow of the bus or introducing too many new potential conflicts of interest and so far that appears to be working quite well.
Not everyone was thrilled. It didn’t retain the access entirely, but the final design did make a concerted effort to really maintain as much across 38th Street access as possible, and that really built a good faith relationship with the community and then help bring things forward.
And then, of course, also just being able to sit down one-on-one, talk to everyone. And, it really sometimes came down to, I think, one of the other specific examples I can think of is someone who’s very upset [who] said, "This looks like it’s going to block my driveway. What’s going to happen? I won’t be able to get in and out of my home.” And I was like, okay let’s take a look. Let’s see what happens. And, just, it was me sitting down with this one individual going through the plan sheets and saying, "Okay here’s your driveway. Looks like it’ll change a little bit here and here." "And how long will my driveway be closed?” "Maybe a day or two, but we can, work out such and such, so it’s not closed on a particular day. Or we can do it within a particular timeframe where maybe getting it out of your driveway isn’t as imperative."
Minimizing that disruption and just saying, ""Yeah, absolutely. We care about your concerns and we can help you come talk to me or I can come talk to you."
Again, meeting people where they are. Don’t always expect them to come to you. It’s those little things. It’s that interpersonal relationship and relationship building that can make or break a project.
