Bloomington engineers and safety planners hosted a meeting Thursday to get feedback from the public on their new plan for a high-traffic, 0.7-mile stretch of Indiana Avenue.
Indiana Avenue, between Smith Avenue and 10th Street, has been a hotspot for severe crashes. The Indiana Avenue project’s website states there were nine crashes resulting in severe injury or death between 2018 and 2023.
Planning Services Manager Ryan Robling said Indiana Avenue has been a particular target for renovation due to its increased risk of serious or fatal crashes.
“There's no super accurate way to predict when a crash will happen,” Robling said. “But you can predict when a fatal and serious injury crash will happen, which is why that's what the focus is.”
The city unveiled several proposed changes to Indiana Avenue geared toward pedestrian and cyclist safety.
The largest focus was adding a two-directional protected bike lane stretching from 10th to Fourth Street and from Third Street to Smith Avenue on Indiana Avenue, a one-way street going north. Safe Streets for All Program Manager Hank Duncan said though cyclists already have the option of going south on Dunn Street one block over, redundancy is important in public transit.
Safe Streets for All is a federal program that funds local governments to initiate prevention measures against serious and fatal crashes.
The city allowed members of the public to apply for grants through the program to implement creative solutions that would protect bikers and pedestrians.
Additionally, Duncan said the bidirectional bike lane would help expedite flow of traffic to and from campus.
“We know that most cyclists over here are going west or going east towards the campus eventually, so we want to keep this by campus because we know the people who are going to use it are going in that direction,” he said.
The new Indiana Avenue plan was designed as a response to a 2024 community survey through which Bloomington residents submitted the most pressing issues for the city in its re-design. A data analysis showed residents were most invested in three initiatives: improving intersections for pedestrians, improving intersections for vehicles and bicycles and adding protected bicycle lanes.
The March 12 meeting centered on the city’s third draft of the plan, which has been in development since June 2024.
The city also proposed a new 90-degree protected crosswalk at the intersection of Atwater and Indiana Avenues. Because a multipurpose lane for non-automobile traffic already exists on nearby Henderson Street, which morphs into Indiana Avenue past Atwater Avenue, planners wanted to connect a new lane to the existing lane.
The bike lanes, if approved, would constrict motor vehicles heading up Indiana. Between Fourth and Seventh Streets, car lanes would shrink from about 12 feet wide to about 11, with the 8 feet dedicated to the bike lanes.
From Seventh to 10th Street, bike lanes would expand to about 14 feet wide, but cars would lose an entire lane — shrinking to a one-lane road.
City planners believe narrowing lanes, in conjunction with other proposed safety measures for hotbed intersections on Indiana Avenue, would lead to a reduction in reckless driving.
“When we’re looking at slowing down motor vehicle speeds, we do that with vertical deflection — raised crosswalks, raised intersections — and horizontal deflection, which is narrowing the lanes,” Duncan said.
Bill Maki, a 54-year-old lifelong Bloomington resident, was not sold on all the city’s proposals.
“I have a daughter that’s currently at Indiana University, and I have a second child that’ll be going next year. Their safety certainly matters,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you should make it impossible for somebody to get from Third Street to 10th Street.”
Maki said he worries the scale of the project — both in cost and measurable impact — could come at the expense of other, more immediate infrastructure needs across the city.
“There are giant potholes on the street my 85-year-old parents live on,” Maki said. “We can’t seem to afford to fix those, but we can afford a lot of these projects that impact a fairly small number of people.”
If the city decides it received enough feedback on this design to warrant revision, it will return to the drawing board and present a new version for public comment. Bloomington residents can comment remotely via this form, accepting new comments until March 30.
If this version were approved and passed by the Transportation Commission, construction would begin tentatively between 2027 and 2028. Indiana Avenue’s first redesign draft was unveiled in 2024.
