Five Simple Fixes for a Deadly Intersection in Indianapolis
The design and maintenance of our city streets should not be left up to engineers. The streets that transverse our communities and form the urban fabric are one part of a complex system, used by many different people for many different purposes. When a single perspective dominates the discussion—in this case, design—the result is incomplete and does not address the many complex components that make up our built environment.
This is a discussion that Strong Towns is having through the Crash Analysis Studio, where we’re creating an alternative framework for analyzing car crashes. The first of these studios analyzed an intersection in Indianapolis, Indiana, where a cyclist was killed when a driver ran a red light.
I am not a traffic engineer. I am an urban designer who has worked on the design and maintenance of many public streets. An urban designer is someone that works within complex systems, and could easily be described as a generalist. I find the pencil to be one of the most powerful tools I have in my toolkit: with a little tracing paper and a pencil, I can illustrate an alternative world.
Through this lens, in my opinion, the conditions at the intersection in Indianapolis were dangerous. Many well-intentioned improvements have been implemented at the site, and many more are proposed—ranging from simple additions, like signs, to larger transformations, like multimillion-dollar bridges and tunnels.
At Strong Towns, we talk about approaching public investment in a methodical way: by starting with humble observation of where people are struggling. I personally spent several hours reviewing the information collected for the Crash Analysis Studio and participated in the two-hour live studio session with five other experts. This is an example of a process of humble observation.
The next step in this process is to ask what is the next smallest thing we can do right now to address a given struggle. I have a lot of experience of implementing projects with little to no budget, utilizing whatever tools or resources are available. Through my lens as an urban designer, a couple impactful, yet simple interventions could be made to make this intersection safer for all users.
I let my pencil do the walking after the Crash Analysis Studio concluded to explore what small things that could be implemented. These types of sketches help me process a real mess that took a dozen hands to create—and may take a thousand hands to fix. This intersection highlights compounded decision making without broad input.
These sketches could not be completed prior to listening to the other experts in the Crash Analysis Studio. I did have to go back and review the content and tour the site through Google Maps a couple of times. After learning more about this crash and hearing from the local experts, I believe that there are some quick and affordable ways to improve this street. I would strongly encourage five changes (labeled A–E, in accordance with the image below) that could be implemented in the corridor. Four of these could be implemented with paint or through regular street maintenance.
(Source: Edward Erfurt. Click to enlarge.)
A. Connect Shopping Centers
This area of Indianapolis is composed of very large blocks, with limited street connectivity. If you want to get from Aldi to Whole Foods, a linear distance of 400 feet, you are forced to drive a quarter of a mile (1,500 feet), and you do not have a pedestrian option. Through a simple connection, the current trip is reduced by over two-thirds the distance. The additional connectivity would reduce the induced traffic on E 86th St.
This requires a conversation between property owners. In my experience, adding this kind of connection is within the realm of reasonable requests that a city may make of a property owner when a development application comes up for approval. The connection will increase the roadway capacity of E 86th St., so the city may explore providing a matching grant to fund the construction.
B. Close the Redundant Entrance
The sidewalk and Monon Trail are interrupted by a wide driveway into the bank parcel. This driveway creates conflicts for both the Trail and E 86th St. It was pointed out by the local experts during the Crash Analysis Studio that this is a concern for cyclists and adds to congestion on E 86th St. This driveway is redundant to the entrance to the shopping center, which is less than 100 feet away and with a traffic signal. The elimination of this driveway removes several conflicts and could yield additional on-site parking for the bank.
The driveway could be closed initially with temporary barriers. When the sidewalk and curbing is replaced, the current drive could be removed. This could be initiated by the city through a temporary construction easement or by the property owner, who would benefit from additional parking.
C. Close Redundant Entrances and Connect Properties—Yielding an Incubator
The commercial property at the intersection of E 86th St and Westfield Boulevard lacks connectivity to the adjacent commercial parcel. This results in two driveways next to each other and less than 200 ft from the intersection. This results in extra paving in the form of three separate drive aisles, conflicts on E 86th St and between the two drives, and additional traffic forced onto E 86th St to travel between these businesses. Closing these drives provide the opportunity not only for additional connectivity, it also yields over 5,000 square feet of land. This gain of developable land could be utilized as an incubator site for temporary events, or for additional infill development.
The driveways could be closed initially with temporary barriers and approximately five feet of temporary paving could be added between the parking lots. The existing redundant pavement could be an incubator space host to temporary popup events, like a food truck rally or seasonal sales like pumpkins and Christmas trees.
When the sidewalk and curbing is replaced, the current drives could be removed. This could be initiated by the city through a temporary construction easement or by the property owner, which will yield additional parking. This connectivity increased capacity on E 86th St, so the city may be able to provide a matching grant for this improvement.
The incubator space could then be developed into a permanent structure or public space.
D. Widen Median—Resizing Travel Lanes
The travel lane widths on E 86th St were measured between 11 and 12 feet wide, plus the additional width of the gutter plan. The posted speed for the street is 35 mph and the speed study prepared for the Crash Analysis Studio demonstrated lower actual speeds. Understanding the context of the street, Studio members suggested a lower posted speed of 25 mph. Narrowing lanes would help in achieving this lower speed.
The travel lanes could be resized to 10 feet in width initially by re-striping the street. The additional four to six feet of extra pavement could be allocated to the median. Adding a total of eight to 12 feet of additional width to the center median creates an opportunity to add a pedestrian refuge on E 86th St.
E 86th St could be also re-stripped through regular roadway maintenance. The lane width could be adjusted in the maintenance schedule when the road is scheduled for new stripes. This is a cost already budgeted by most cities so no additional funds are needed to be budgeted to complete this work.
E. Reduce Excessive Entrance Widths
This intersection serves two shopping centers with multiple wide lanes in and out of these centers. All of these lanes and excess widths into the shopping center, result in a very large intersection. To put this into context, this is the same size as the intersection E 86th St. and Westfield Boulevard, which is an intersection of two 5–6 lane streets. Due to the size and excessive turning radii, the pedestrian and cyclist must wait in the right-turn lanes at this location.
The size of each of the shopping center entrances could be reduced from over 70 feet with multiple oversized travel lanes to 25 feet with two lanes; one in and one out. By resizing the entrances, the intersection will be better defined, easier to navigate for all users, and will fit in better with the surrounding properties.
Locating these entrances to the center of the intersection will create space for the addition of ADA directional curb ramps as directed through Public Rights-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines, to be added at each corner of this intersection. This condition will also place the pedestrian or cyclist out of, and further away from, vehicle turn movements.
This could be implemented with temporary curing and paint. When the accessible directional ramps are installed, the new curb alignment could be made permanent.
Specific to the Intersection
There are several additional improvements that could be made at the scale of the intersection:
Widen the Crosswalk to a Minimum of 10 Feet
The marked crosswalk was identified by the local professionals as the width of a regular city crosswalk, which is a smaller width of the Trail. The marked crosswalk should be widened, which is possible when the shopping center driveways are reduced. The wider crosswalk marking would provide more driver awareness and adequate width for cyclists and pedestrians to pass.
Push Back the Stop Bars
Resizing and scaling the driveways to the shopping center will create greater distance from the stop bars on E 86th St. and the driveways. This distance is a physical design feature of the street to reinforce the posted “No Turn on Red” sign. Cars will stop over 20 feet from the driveways, making the field of vision for the drivers greater for the crosswalk and the traffic light. It will also provide pedestrians and cyclists crossing E 86th St. more awareness sooner in the event a car runs the redlight.
Add a Pedestrian Refuge
A wider median by sizing the travel lanes for the roadway and necking down the shopping center entrances could yield an additional 10–12 feet of width to the median. A pedestrian refuge could be added with paint and a vertical curb.
Remove or Relocate the Pylon Sign
The pylon shopping center sign is a barrier and results in a larger than necessary entrance to the shopping center. The shopping center owner should be encouraged to remove or relocate this sign in the future.
Edward Erfurt is the Director of Community Action at Strong Towns. He is a trained architect and passionate urban designer with over 20 years of public- and private-sector experience focused on the management, design, and successful implementation of development and placemaking projects that enrich the tapestry of place. He believes in community-focused processes that are founded on diverse viewpoints, a concern for equity, and guided through time-tested, traditional town-planning principles and development patterns that result in sustainable growth with the community character embraced by the communities which he serves.