Reviewing the presentation by IndyGo at last week's meeting of the Municipal Corporations Committee, I see that the public was once again treated to lie after lie after lie. Naturally, the Indianapolis news media is doing nothing to report the truth to the public because it's in bed with the consultants, contractors, lobbyists and other special interest groups that plan to profit off this billion dollar plus investment. And yes, it is a billion dollar plus investment regardless of what these professional liars are telling the public.
Councilor Christine Scales, the only council member present who asked any tough questions of the IndyGo officials, confronted them with their past studies that showed other preferred corridors of development for faster, more efficient routes of public transportation. The IndyGo folks first denied other routes were planned until Scales held up the past reports she had received from them. They shifted in their seats and danced around the issue as much as they could before finally admitting those were just early iterations without as much study behind them. Those studies, incidentally, were prepared at a cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers. The highest priority line at that time would have followed I-69 from Noblesville to downtown. That line isn't even on the 5-year plan now. Why? Because IndyGo says it's pointless to do it without Hamilton County's cooperation, and officials there have no plans to enact a tax increase until years down the road after Indianapolis taxpayers have paid the freight for implementing several lines that could eventually connect with the suburban areas.
IndyGo officials couldn't deny their federal grant application for the first phase of the Red Line projected a fare box return of just 17% despite a requirement in the state law that a tax increase approved for the purpose of building BRT had to include a fare box return of at least 25%. IndyGo claims its current fixed routes generate about 20% return at the fare box, but it's para-transit and other transportation services with less ridership drives the return rate down. They said they expect much higher return rates once BRT is implemented, but they wanted to be very conservative in their estimates. When asked if fares would be raised to make up the difference when ridership of the BRT lines fail to generate a 25% return, IndyGo officials said no; rather, other adjustments in the operating system would be made. What that means is that other non-BRT, fixed routes will be eliminated to meet the 25% requirement, which means less bus coverage city-wide for the vanity of having brand spanking new BRT lines.
IndyGo officials told another big fat lie when they claimed their $7 million per mile estimate for Red Line costs was in line with other comparable cities. They falsely claimed Cleveland, which built its BRT line for more than double the cost nearly a decade ago, was a false comparison because of the complimentary infrastructure improvements that were required for it. That's one of my points. They are not counting in their estimates tens of millions of dollars in expenses that will show up in DPW's budget. A 16-year old federal study found that the average cost of BRTs constructed up to that time had come in at $13.5 million per mile. Yet IndyGo thinks it can get the job done for half the cost nearly two decades later. The IndyGo officials also claimed that BRT was relatively new at the time Cleveland implemented its line. BRTs have been around since the 1970s. Pittsburgh built the first known BRT in the U.S. in 1977. Apparently, it never occurred to any members of this council committee to ask IndyGo officials why IndyGo told them just last August the Red Line would cost $60 million, only to return a few months later with a budget estimate of $96 million.
Have you wondered why business owners along College Avenue haven't been more vocal in their opposition to the Red Line like we've seen happening in other cities around the country where BRT lines were proposed? We got our answer to that question at last week's committee meeting. They've been bribed. That's right. Grants have been promised to every business owner along College Avenue which is adversely affected during the construction phase of the Red Line. When have you ever seen this done? Were grants awarded to businesses that struggled during the I-31 construction in Hamilton County? Were grants awarded to businesses adversely affected by the drawn out construction of the Cultural Trail. Absolutely not. Low or no-interest loans are the most adversely affected business owners ever receive under such circumstances. Not here in Indianapolis.
None of this should come as a surprise. Do you know what phony non-profit has been awarded a contract by IndyGo to help develop the BRT's plan to use electric buses? That would be the same phony non-profit behind Vision Fleet, Blue Indy and other public thefts that took place under the Ballard administration. Paul Mitchell's Energy Systems Network, which is located on the same floor of the Chase Tower with all of those inter-connected racketeering non-profit organizations that collude with the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce to screw Indianapolis taxpayers any which they can. The Chamber's lobbyist, Mark Fisher, has been allowed to serve as a member of IndyGo's board by our City-County Council. Do you know of any other city in America where the chamber of commerce supports every tax increase imaginable because it has a handful of members who have figured out how to pay off our crooked politicians to steer all of the spoils of any new spending to a handful of their chosen members? Remember all of the huffing and puffing our City-County Council did over the Vision Fleet, Blue Indy and other illegal corrupt deals entered into by the Ballard administration the Chamber was behind? Yeah, it was all phony bluster. They don't give a damn how much these crooks rob the public blind.
On the tax increase itself, committee members finally figured out that the quarter percent increase isn't a take-it or leave-it proposition. Council members have authority to lower the proposed tax rate that will appear on this November's ballot. IndyGo knows its cost estimates are way off from outset so it naturally wants the maximum tax rate of a quarter percent, which will generate about $56 million a year, more than doubling the taxes that Indianapolis residents currently pay to support IndyGo. IndyGo says it will not move forward with the construction of BRTs if the referendum is voted down, but they've already been assured by the PTB that if it goes on the ballot, the electronic voting equipment that will count the referendum ballots implemented by agreement of the corrupt leaders of the two major political parties, ensures the referendum question will receive the requisite number of votes. How would the public ever know if an algorithm is placed in the voting software to rig the outcome of the referendum? And the public will hear throughout the months leading up to the election nothing but propaganda in favor of the referendum funded with your taxpayer dollars, and the management of the Indianapolis Star, IBJ, Fox 59, WTHR, WRTV and WISH-TV have all agreed to propagandize voters non-stop in exchange for the paid advertisement the proponents have already committed to spend at each of their business organizations promoting its passage.
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