2022: the Indy Cyclist's Summer from Hell

Never mind that the weather so far this year has been abnormally hot (an even dozen 90-plus degree days so far this year, including one of 99°) and, for most cyclists' tastes, a tad windy. No, we who choose two wheels and muscle power are inured to the fickleness of the weather gods. What's getting our goat this year is how much stress DPW and private construction companies are putting on cyclists. 

Take the Monon Rail Trail. Sure, purists and wannabe TdF competitors claim to eschew the trail, but take a look at it on the Strava heat map: it's white-hot! Well, it's a lot less white-hot this year...

At the south end, there's ongoing construction, piecemeal, all the way from 14th to 56th Streets. Detour signs might have been posted on day one, but they're pretty much absent today. A pair of maps that purport to show the marked detours can be found through some diligent searching, but they're of little use unless the reader is already familiar with the pattern of streets in downtown and north Indy: a sample of one appears to the right, at full scale. After half an hour of staring at Google Maps, I'm pretty sure the route shown crosses Central at 17th Street and then turns north on Alabama. Maybe.  See this link for a scaleable version of the detour map, as best as I can decipher it.

A little farther north, the "north" detour takes trail users northeast along the Fall Creek Greenway to 39th, crosses Binford to a half mile or so of sidewalk, then heads north on Evanston. I've ridden Evanston: it is a typical Indy side street that's about as passable as an Idaho jeep trail. Oh, yeah, and the Fall Creek trail is closed for construction at 38th, meaning that there's a detour on the detour. Clearly, whoever laid out these detours hasn't ridden a bicycle in decades.

To the north, in Hamilton County, the Monon is closed through part of downtown Carmel with a detour that throws trail users out into a busy roundabout at Rangeline Road and City Center – that's assuming you can find the detour signs. A bridge on Westfield Park Road is being replaced as I write this; resulting in closure of the trail between 169th and the Midland Trace trail, with a detour that follows 169th St. west to Oak Ridge Road. Planning to avoid the detours by using the Natalie Wheeler Trail up Union Street from 156th (or 146th) to 181st? Nope: Union is closed for construction of a roundabout at 161st.

Downtown Indy, of course, is the usual morass of construction sites randomly closing bike lanes so workers can park their pickups; not to mention the punishing pavement of side streets beaten to shreds by traffic trying to avoid North Split construction.

And on the south side? The Pleasant Run Trail (a serious misnomer, IYAM) suddenly disappears into a construction zone at English and Southeastern, without benefit of a marked detour. Supposedly, you're directed north to Washington. Yeah, right.

All that and the usual indignities like overhanging trees forcing cyclists from the bike lane into the traffic lanes at 19th and Illinois, a veritable trench down the middle of the Capitol Avenue bike lane from 34th to 18th, and the annual encroachment of underbrush and weeds along all multi-use trails, especially the Fall Creek Greenway (but not the Cultural Trail...).

Combine the half-witted detours and with the long-term neglect of neighborhood streets and trails like the Write River Greenway, and then throw in the frightening phenomenon that is pandemic-driven scofflaw driving – speeding, ignoring stop signs, running traffic lights – and Indy's been a dangerous place to ride so far this year. Thank heavens for a couple of trails that are still rideable... but I'm not telling the world which ones.

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