On April 25, 2026, approximately 110 volunteers painted curb bump-outs in all four quadrants of the 16th Street crossing, narrowed the street to one travel lane in each direction with weighted delineators and flexible posts, and restored legal on-street parking on 16th Street by removing old signs. The work was done through the City's Community Powered Infrastructure program at a cost of $5,494. What follows is what we learned afterward.
Resident-run speed and safety study: about 8,900 vehicle observations across 30 sessions
Neighborhood volunteers counted traffic for four weeks before the build and four weeks after it. The results were shared with the Department of Public Works on May 31, 2026. Every measure moved in the same direction.
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Average speed | 21.5 mph | 17.5 mph |
| 85th percentile speed | 29 mph | 22 mph |
| Share of drivers over 25 mph | 26.7% | 6.8% |
| Severe conflicts per session | 22 | 3 |
The full observation-level data is published further down this page, so anyone can check the numbers against the source.
Community survey, 123 responses, open continuously June 11 to July 11, 2026
We worked with Health by Design on a short survey about what people noticed since the build and what they want the area to become. It ran for a month and was frozen on July 15, 2026 at 123 responses. Respondents were people from the surrounding neighborhood (56), people who live on or next to the trail (31), trail users from elsewhere (25), business owners and workers (10), and one occasional visitor.
One respondent of 123 asked to return to the original layout.
The open public land south of 16th Street, between Lewis Street and the trail
The survey asked directly what that ground should become. The five options below are mutually exclusive, so they add up to all 123 responses.
Combining the first three options gives a community-first preference of 103 of 123 (84%). Combining the last two gives a parking-leaning preference of 20 of 123 (16%), of which 10 (8%) asked for all parking. These groupings are cumulative roll-ups of the five options above, not a second way of dividing the same 123 people.
Amenities respondents said they wanted, multiple selections allowed, n = 123
We also asked what would bring people to the businesses near the crossing more often. The answers were mostly about the walk there.
20 of 123 respondents (16%) preferred a parking-leaning outcome for the strip, and 10 of those asked for all parking. We report that alongside everything else, because a survey that publishes only the majority is not evidence.
Of the 88 people who answered the question, 10 reported witnessing a close call or a crash at the crossing since the build, including one account of a pedestrian being struck. We report it for the same reason, and we read it as a case for making the safety design permanent rather than a reason to doubt it.
Addressed to the Department of Public Works and the Department of Metropolitan Development
Through our conversations with the Department of Public Works, we understand the corridor capital project to include 16th Street restriped to two travel lanes with parallel parking along both sides. We also understand it to leave roughly 40 feet between that parking and the trail for potential activation uses. Design work is ongoing and details may have moved since we last discussed them. What residents asked for fits inside that reserved space.
The request follows existing adopted policy rather than asking for an exception
None of this is a new idea. What neighbors asked for lines up with the planning framework Indianapolis and Central Indiana already have on the books.
"Parking should be located on the sides or rear of buildings, not adjacent to the trail." Where trail-adjacent parking already exists, it "should be used as flex space for food trucks and pop-up events." Central Indiana Trail-Oriented Development Study, IMPO, March 2024
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization is the federally designated transportation planning body for Central Indiana. Its March 2024 study is specific about what belongs at a trail edge, and about designing land use around trail users rather than around car storage.
Adopted in 2014 and now advancing an update, the Full Circle plan is a supporting document of the Marion County comprehensive plan. The Monon is the spine of the system it describes, and it sets systemwide standards for safety, accessibility, and funding eligibility.
The City's Department of Metropolitan Development recognizes neighborhood-prepared land use plans that meet its standards for public engagement and content. Certification is not an ordinance and carries no funding, but it creates a pathway for a neighborhood's plan to inform the official Comprehensive Plan.
Certified in 2025, this resident-led plan is the nearby certified example, and per DMD its boundary extends to the Monon. It is the model for how a neighborhood in this part of the city turns community engagement into a document the City will consider.
The economics point the same way. The Monon carries an estimated 1.3 million users a year through Indianapolis (Rails-to-Trails estimate). In Carmel, redevelopment officials estimate the trail has helped attract more than $250 million in development since it was built (Carmel Redevelopment, via Rails-to-Trails). The pattern in both cases is treating the trail as the amenity.
The underlying data is published in full
Responses were cleaned under a written decision log covering duplicate submissions, one repeat submitter whose two responses contradicted each other (both excluded), and conditional questions nulled where they did not apply. The dataset was frozen on July 15, 2026, and every number on this page traces to that frozen file. Quotes in the community report are verbatim and anonymous. Of the 123 respondents, 90 signed the petition and 89 consented to have their signature shared with the City; those names and addresses go to the City separately under that consent and appear in no published document.
Everything below is the source material, released so that anyone can reproduce the findings above or reach their own.
We removed names, contact information, precise submission timing, linked geography, and raw narrative responses to protect participants while preserving the structured evidence behind our published findings.
Privacy-reduced categorical responses for independent analysis, with rare values generalized or excluded.
Download microdataQuestion-level counts, denominators, percentages, petition totals, and approved cross-tabs, including fields omitted from the row-level file.
Download summariesThe small set of open-text excerpts already reviewed for privacy and published anonymously in the community report.
Download quotesHow the release was produced, what each column means, privacy limitations, provenance, verification hashes, and reuse terms.
Download documentationFor a concise record of the cleanup, generalization, suppression, and validation steps, read the survey-data processing actions. The internal decision log is not included in the public release.
Volunteer names and initials were replaced consistently with Volunteer A through Volunteer P, while source paths and handwritten notes were removed. The release preserves the structured PRE/POST measurements and analysis tables while reducing the chance that individual data-collection volunteers can be identified.
All four de-identified source tables, 11 analysis tables, and documentation in one download.
Download packageOne row per vehicle with public session and form IDs, vehicle type, direction, speed band, and threshold flags.
Download speedsInterval-level interaction counts by severity and road-user type, without raw handwritten notes.
Download interactionsStudy phase, date, time, and location with stable Volunteer A–P labels in place of individual names.
Download sessionsSee the speed-data README for field definitions, transformations, limitations, and responsible-use guidance.
This corner is proof that when neighbors come together, improvements are possible. Thank you for being part of that.