Alex Ihnen: St. Louis should duplicate Indy's Cultural Trail & bike share system

Alex Ihnen of NextSTL proposes that St. Louis should duplicate Indianapolis's successful Cultural Trail.  Alex writes:

In 2001 Indianapolis proposed that five central city neighborhoods be designated cultural districts. Taken together, they were home to nearly every significant arts, cultural, heritage, sports, and entertainment venue in the city. The problem? The neighborhoods were poorly connected and lacked an identity. The solution? The Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

Indianpolis Cultural Trail

Completed in 2012, the $63M 8-mile multi-use trail was funded by $27.5M in private and philanthropic support, and $35.5M from federal transportation grants. A recent study has found that since the project announcement and groundbreaking in 2007, property values within 500ft of the trail have increased by 148%, or more than $1 billion.

The trail has increased revenue and traffic for businesses along the route. The average trail user spends $53 at local businesses. 95% of users feel safe using the trail. 40-50 new full-time, and 47 new part-time jobs were added at businesses along the trail since its opening. In Fletcher Place, 73 percent of businesses responding to the study’s survey were established after 2010, well after work on the Cultural Trail began. The trail also provided Indianapolis a natural anchor for it’s 250-bike, 25-station bike share program.

The interesting thing about the Cultural Trail is that it links key neighborhoods and destinations in the central city together.  It's not just a great place to walk or bicycle, but something that helps bind the city and its neighborhoods together into a cohesive place. In addition, the trail costs relatively little and has a surprisingly large economic impact.

And what about bike share in St. Louis?

And, as Alex emphasizes, the trail became the core of Indianpolis's bike share system. 

As St. Louis dallies along looking for a little bit of money to get its bike share system going, we have to start to wonder--is St. Louis going to be the very last major U.S. city to adopt bike share?  Or perhaps just the last in the midwest?

Looking at the major metro areas closest to St. Louis: As of today, Kansas City, Topeka, Des Moines, Omaha, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Fort Worth, Chattanooga, Nashville, Louisville, Cincinatti, Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Minneapolis all have bike share systems up and operating.

I guess St. Louis can take cold comfort in the fact the Memphis (at 1/2 the metro population of STL) and Fort Wayne (at 1/10 the size) haven't gotten their bike share act together yet, either.

But when those two cities get their bike share systems going--and both are hard at work on it already--that's going to leave St. Louis in mightly skimpy company.

Photo credit: WalkIndianapolis.com